


To Foresee

by vanitaslaughing



Series: the immortal king and the seer [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Body Horror, Gen, Spoilers, at least for ch5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-09 17:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 63,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8902132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: verb (used with object)1. to have prescience of; to know in advance; foreknow.2. to see beforehand.The Immortal King and the Verus Seers were not on good terms when said King banished them. Millennia and a seemingly endless period of peace in the Kingdom of Lucis later, the ones who see death before it occurs and have the Gods' favour to change fate wash up in Insomnia... The Wall is cracking and the Starscourge finds its way back to Lucis.





	1. Chapter 1

"They say the King of Light banished the Starscourge from our kingdom and from most other places, but it was never gone, just dormant."

"So... behind the Wall there's..."

"Yes. That is why you must never get too close to it, Noctis. We're safe here, after all."

* * *

The Verus family, back then barely more than one suspected of attempted regicide, was banished to the outermost reaches of the Kingdom of Lucis. The second Verus Seer was born in a small settlement in the very outermost reaches of Cleigne called Frontier, and ever since their family and its Seers had been born there, lived there, died there. Just because of their powers did other people know of this family, but most people in the kingdom of Lucis considered their power a curse for the founder had been banished by the Immortal King most likely for a dire reason.  


They watched the Wall, ever so slightly shimmering even in the night—it was never truly dark in the Kingdom of Light after all.

Thus, the 113th Seer of the Verus line nearly immediately realised something was wrong when it actually got dark for once, especially that close to the Wall. Nightfall had always made Regis Verus slightly uneasy, something about this time of the day always made him nervous ever since his wife had died. She had loved the night the most and taken away his fear of it, but since her death the fear had come back with a vengeance, and thus he sat on his son's bed and watched the Wall. It was too dark, just too dark.

After an hour there was an eerie silence choking everything, and he felt the headache that ensued whenever a vision was incoming pounding in the back of his head.

Within a second he saw flashes of fire, of the people he knew screaming and falling to the ground, and the entire village crumbling as creatures he had never seen seemingly tore down the fabric of reality. He also saw his son, barely older than six, sprawled on the ground unmoving, and Regis forced the vision back out in cold sweat.

It had been so long since he called on the true power of a Verus Seer—so long he nearly forgot how to do it. But for the first time in six years he called upon the stars and Astrals to guide him, to wrest fate from Shiva's hands and give him permission to change it. Once he felt the icy cold that meant his plea had been heard and he had been granted permission, he grabbed Noctis from his bed.

His son opened his eye slowly and let out a tiny noise of protest, but Regis shooed his child.

"It's alright, Noct, it's alright."

"What're... you doing...?"

Regis inhaled slowly. There it was again, that headache, that incoming feeling of doom. "We're going on a trip."

Noctis yawned, "Trip? Thought we're banned from that."

Just a split moment later they heard an explosion, and suddenly Noctis was wide awake and clung to his father.

"Dad!?" It was all the kid managed before he whimpered, for he took off and hurried downstairs.

Regis growled a little as they passed a mirror in their house. Those brightly shining eyes in a strange reddish-pink tint that was the telltale sign of a Seer having had a vision stared back at him from both his and Noctis' faces, and he made a dive for the car keys with his free hand. Normally a Verus did not start having visions until they were at least 15, but for some gods-forsaken reason Noctis had to have been one of the few exceptions of the rules, much like the 71st, the 47th, the 13th and the 2nd had been. Nothing was worse than waking up in the middle of the night and see his son staring at him with these gleaming eyes.

It was getting brighter outside… but not because the dim light of Lucis was returning. No, the first houses had caught on fire, as Regis had seen in his dreams. He dashed out the front door, keys in one hand and his trembling son in the other as the screaming around them started. It was just like his vision, and once more his blood turned to ice. This was the moment he had asked to be changed, and indeed as he set Noctis down to unlock the car as fast as he could, some kind of creature crept around the corner. Regis quickly interrupted what he was doing and sent a small fireball its way – if there was one upside to being a Seer it was the fact that he was one of the few people in this kingdom that was able to use magic.

He opened the car’s door and tried to pry Noctis from his leg.

“Noct, let go. Get in the car. Come on!”

The boy let out a tiny whimper and clawed at his father’s legs.

“D-D...ad… be...”

In the same moment as Noctis let out a screech Regis felt something raking across his back. Claws, most likely. Thus he bent down, picked up his son, and just shoved him onto the seat. At least he could block this thing from entering the car for as long as necessary, but surprisingly the creature soon had enough of trying to claw his back open to get at the child huddled on the seat inside the car.

Regis then put Noctis on the back seat, sat down in his trusty car as blood ran down his back and seeped into the driver’s seat.

* * *

“Your Majesty, we’ve lost contact with Freya at Frontier.”  


If there was one positive side to being the Immortal King, most people didn’t recognise him outside of the Citadel unless they had worked there before. Most people would assume this man was just employed there as he walked.

“Freya at Frontier?”

That particular place was something he preferred not thinking about – after all he had banished Izunia Verus there, all these years ago. The man known as Immortal King Ardyn Lucis Caelum had done so mostly out of spite at that point, for Izunia had admitted and somewhat repented for his sins back then. Not that that stopped Ardyn from banishing him.

“Yes, your Majesty.”

He’d stopped on the stairs next to the current head of the Amicitia family, a family wholly devoted to protecting the crown. They all looked so stern and serious throughout all generations, Ardyn thought it quite hilarious (not that he said that out loud, these men and women could most likely crush him).

Clarus shrugged. “It is very unlike Freya to not report back. I was considering going to Frontier and checking on her as well as the current head of the Verus family. Something was odd about that man last time I–“

Some guard behind them shouted, and the sound of a car sliding while braking at full force sounded through the Citadel. Ardyn and Clarus turned around. A black car. That normally never meant something good, but Ardyn was plenty relaxed – barely anyone knew what he looked like. If that was some half-hearted attempt to end the Immortal it would fail as usual, for one of the only things the people in Lucis knew was that their King was followed by a creature known as Carbuncle. Said creature was currently most likely rolled up on a carpet and snoring like a badly behaved house cat.

When the door opened and a bleeding man stumbled out clutching a wailing child, the people who had also frozen suddenly sprung back into motion.

Ardyn on the other hand stared into familiar eyes, with that infuriating glow in them, and he tensed up a little before he followed Clarus slowly. A Seer. Hadn’t he banned the Verus from this city?

But the closer he got the more he started to realise that this man knew that he had broken a millennium-old banishment to get here with his slightly injured and wailing son, and his brightly glowing eyes were clouding over as he set the kid down slowly.

“Frontier… overrun.”

The boy was clinging to his father’s leg at this point and shaking him slightly, although Ardyn tried to phase that child’s bawling out – two Seers, in the middle of Citadel, in the middle of Insomnia. He’d heard of Regis Verus when he had been born, when he had assumed the position of head of the family. He’d heard of his son Noctis too, and that he was an exception of the unspoken rules that no Seer should be able to see death before a certain age, but… Ardyn’s perception of time had gotten lopsided long ago. For some reason he had imagined that child to be in his early teens already, not to be a child that seemed barely old enough to cling to his father’s leg and beg him to stay awake.

Only then did he remember Izunia’s silent voice all those years ago - “I will watch your Wall, then”.

Indeed, after taking a shallow breath Regis Verus looked at the Immortal King.

“Wall… busted. Daemons… Daemons took Frontier. S-Seal it… up. Outside. No s-survivors… other than Noct…is and me.”

It had always been strange that the family name of the Seers was Verus rather than the actual founder’s last name. Verus Izunia had been a traitor, but he had always been as truthful as his name suggested. Maybe that was why the Seers were called the Verus instead of the Izunia, although for the first ten generations it had nearly made Ardyn laugh.

Now, the 113th of that line pat his son on the head, looked at the king and the King’s Shield with blank eyes, and toppled over forward.

People moved once more, apparently waiting for their liege to say something. Ardyn simply gave the sign to call for doctors, but he noticed Clarus furrowed brows as even the called healers and medics screwed up their faces at the deep gashes across the collapsed man’s back

“Amicitia. Spill it.”

“The… the son, your Highness.”

Of course a father would be soft when it came to wailing children. Several people indeed looked from the boy to their king and back with furrowed brows and pitiful expressions, and Ardyn knew they all had children. The kid on the other hand just tried following these people who had collected his father, his glowing eyes bright and wild.

A child that age couldn’t have been taught to control its visions correctly, no matter how devoted the elder Seer and therefore their only teacher was. Six was too early for someone to see death at the whim of the gods, and even Ardyn screwed up his face in pity for a split second.

Then he gestured.

“Amicitia, pick up that child. Take him with you into the Citadel, we’ll work something out inside.”

* * *

Noctis Verus, 114th Seer of the Verus line, was wailing for them to please let him go to his father. He didn’t know why his blood was so icy cold, but that vision of his father falling and never getting up again would haunt him forever.  


* * *

_Those deep blue eyes that seemingly were unable to portray anything but their owner’s true feelings, like a mirror – or the lake he fished Izunia from. Many people committed suicide because of the Starscourge, but even that dive had been awkward from where the man simply known as Healer sat. It turned out the buffoon had tried to recover something his sister dropped when she collapsed the other day, a vain hope that retrieving the trinket would save the dying girl’s life._  


_Ardyn healed her, of course. It was his duty as the only one able to expunge the Starscourge from a mortal body. Menda Verus awoke with a jolt next to her dripping brother, and the young man just started crying as he held the girl, profusely thanking the Healer._

_They then swore their lives to him – Menda was a talented girl, especially in the martial arts. Verus on the other hand was more of a buffoon, but Ardyn soon came to enjoy his presence. It was… grounding, in a way, especially to someone who conversed with the Astrals and who fought the literal plague that ate away at Eos’ existence._

_These wide blue eyes often followed Ardyn into his sleep when he still slept, especially after Menda died heroically trying to defend an entire village from a Daemon gone wild._

_The unspoken accusations that mirrored in Izunia’s eyes as they buried his sister together._

* * *

Now, after more years than he bothered counting, those blue eyes were staring up at him again. It was not Izunia, though, unmoving as Ardyn, recently crowned King of Lucis, spoke his sentence. This set of blue eyes belonged to a trembling child, and the blue was still rimmed with a red glow, an aftershock of the vision (or possibly several visions) this child had before being seated in a far-off room in an unknown castle in a city it never even dared dreaming of. Sitting opposite a man who banned its family, to boot.  


Amicitia had been sent to stand watch and was to inform the king immediately if anything changed with the kid’s father. Ardyn was more than displeased with this situation, but he knew better than to scowl at a terrified child.

Noctis, on the other hand, was looking for a way to escape. He was well-behaved for his age, his father had always made sure he knew what manners were and how to act all proper around people he didn’t know. But this man intimidated him, and he wanted to just see his father and for the man to tell him it was alright, that the Wall was still there to protect them from these creatures.

So there they sat, King and Seer, one awkwardly staring at the floor and the other often shooting dismissive glances at the portraits scattered across the walls of the room.

Eventually the child got clearly upset, but seemed unable to address the older man in any way, shape, or form – Regis had been thorough with teaching Noctis manners, certainly, but not even the 113th had expected to ever enter Insomnia, let alone sit opposite the King. So he muttered and mumbled something for a few minutes before Ardyn was ready to snap at the kid.

In exactly that same moment, as he inhaled to tell the boy to speak loudly or not at all, large tears started rolling from these even larger blue eyes. Truly, it looked like someone had kicked a helpless puppy, the bloodstains on his clothes and the soot on his face aside.

It was as Ardyn stared at this crying boy that he noticed that something in this room moved. Naturally it had to be the Carbuncle. It always was the Carbuncle that moved or appeared in the worst possible moments, and he had to hold himself back from rolling his eyes. Even back then it had been that creature that might have had a paw in--

‘ _Blaming me again instead of yourself for Izunia and Menda? That stopped being funny approximately 2,734 years ago.’_

Ardyn stifled a sigh – at the same time Noctis turned around. Had the kid heard the creature?

Impossible. No one but the summoner heard the summon. As much as he sometimes disliked that particular characteristic of a summon; but every other person heard only squeaks or unintelligible garbage (which was what the Language of the Gods sounded like even if Ardyn knew the meaning of the words).

‘ _Ho, there he sits, the mighty King, unable to speak to a child.’_

The boy giggled a little.

“You--”

‘ _You’ve ruled for what, over 6,000 years? Even if we just assume that every Verus before this boy here has lived for only 50 before having a child and dying. So it’s give rather than take. Over 6,000 years and you can’t talk to a kid, let alone admit Menda and Izunia were your fault.’_

The King sneered at the summon as it jumped on the table and stretched.

“If you had been--”

‘ _Goodness gracious. You do know that in the last 1,000 years you lost every argument.’_

“You are persistent enough for--”

‘ _It would be kind of awkward if a summon weren’t persistent, Ardyn Lucis Caelum.’_

“Stop interrupt--”

‘ _Bweh.’_

A sound in the room made both of them stop their pointless bantering – the boy, still looking tired and terrified, was laughing at this point. Not loudly, like children his age should, but he was certainly laughing. For a split second Ardyn saw the Carbuncle side-eye him before it jumped off the table and into the child’s lap.

Of course. Naturally a fuzzy creature of some sort would calm a nervous child. It always worked, even back then, up to the point Izunia had suggested catching some pointless fluffy thing and giving it to children who were terrified of their infected parents, terrified enough to get in the way somehow.

Noctis just stared at the creature now circling around his lap until it lay down. It was kind of like a cat, like the lady in the next house over had, though slightly bigger and with more fox-like features. Still, it started purring there, and he fought the urge to pet it. He had heard it argue with the King, which meant that it was, first off, different than a cat. Second of all, the familiarity between King and creature implied that they were close, and it would be more than bad manners to pet a thinking creature that belonged to someone else or was just friends with the literal Immortal King.

It also seemed like they thought he couldn’t hear the creature. Noctis heard its voice, clear as a bell, somewhere in the back of his head, and he heard every backhanded but affectionate insult it hurled at the King.

At some point eh urge to pet it became near overwhelming. King and creature had gone back to bantering after he had laughed a little, so it was hard to catch the man’s attention. He tried doing it like his father did, with staring at the man for a while and clearing his throat. It didn’t work, really.

So he tried addressing the man, which also somewhat failed. His voice was just too silent.

“E-Excuse me!”

He hadn’t meant to yell. Especially not at the King. Gods, his father would be so ashamed.

On the other hand, now he had the attention of the man, and he stumbled over his words for a moment.

“I-I w-was… wondering… N-Not to… L-Like… Uhm.”

It wasn’t hard to read a child’s desires, at least something as simple as wanting to pet some fuzzy, soft creature that was bemusedly purring in the kid’s lap. Ardyn pinched the bridge of his nose as the infernal summon started laughing softly before shaking his head and looking at the boy.

“Go ahead.”

“T-Th-Thank you!”

* * *

At the very least it was distracting enough for Ardyn to slink off. He had never thought about how the Carbuncle was nothing more than an oversized cat, especially now that it was play-fighting with some silly string. He made a mental note to think Kar the Carbuncle later for at least keeping the child distracted. He had seen that flash of red spark up in the kid’s eyes after he had suddenly whimpered a little.  


So the Immortal King marched off to find Amicitia. Or at least the man that Amicitia had been told to watch.

Noctis had seen that maid who had entered the room getting hit by a car. His father had always told him to not talk about these visions, but the way the King looked at him with furrowed brows as he had sent the maid out had made him worry. Surely the King knew of that power, he had to. After all it had been him who had sent his family to live in Frontier. Kar, on the other hand, tried to distract the kid some more. That had been Ardyn’s unspoken command when he left.

When the King found where his orders had taken both Amicitia and the wounded elder Seer, Amicitia immediately stiffened. Before Ardyn even asked for a report, he got one.

“Clearly a Daemon’s work, none of the doctors knew what kind of creature had caused these injuries. Looked similar to these people from beyond the Wall, and Frontier was close to it, after all. He’s barely conscious at this point, and the doctors are at a loss.”

Daemons, then. That explained why not a single person could contact Freya. She was a watcher, not a fighter, and would have most likely perished in Frontier. Still, Ardyn tilted his head a little.

“Check Frontier.”

“As you wish, your Majesty.”

Clarus turned around, but Ardyn stopped him to add, “No pointless heroism, your children need you alive”.

Once Amicitia was gone Ardyn demanded entry to the infirmary, and stared down a very barely conscious Regis Verus. Indeed, this poor man looked positively beaten within an inch of his life, and again Ardyn found himself staring at one of this family and wondering how they survived all these immensely dangerous and often stupid things.

Much like his son, his eyes were also rimmed red still, but also glazed over as if the man were about to pass out again. Ardyn therefore knew he didn’t have much time.

“Just one thing, Verus.”

There was a tiny, barely noticeable nod. At least he was still responsive enough for this.

“Frontier overrun and no survivors, as you said. I am indeed inclined to believe that. But why would you, as survivor, make this trip while quite literally bleeding out on the front seat, only to break a ban that has gone on for near six millennia?”

There was a deep silence in the room. Even the Seer, his eyes once more flashing up bright red, seemed at a loss for words. Or maybe he was just planning his next move – Ardyn never quite understood what Izunia and Menda meant when they fell silent.

The last word the 113th Verus Seer spoke before falling into a coma he might as well never wake up from was “ _Noctis_ ”.

* * *

He stood in the room for a while. This was exactly how he had accidentally picked up Izunia and Menda when the Starscourge ran rampant without a cure and without a King of Light as the only person capable of healing the symptoms and preventing people from turning into Daemons.  


The Healer returned to the room he had left child and Carbuncle in. The kid had fallen asleep in the meanwhile, rolled up on the rug, next to the summon from ancient times, a hand in the soft fur.

‘ _You look displeased.’_

“You have _no_ godsdamn idea.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "but neku aethercurrent, how on earth do seers even work in your au"
> 
> i gotchu fam
> 
> also i have no idea how ff15 managed to wrestle me down a wall and knocked of a writer's block so im outputting 3k words chapters again

_Oh, he had met his fair share of strange people. The Starscourge certainly did not differentiate between lord and peasant, and as Healer it was his very duty to help those in need. It didn’t stop people from trying to buy his services so he would go to their sick relatives over the affected and often within an inch of life’s commoners, especially in the larger settlements they passed._

_Shortly after accidentally having picked up Izunia and Menda, he realised the elder of the two could foresee death._

_Albeit still rather displeased with the general situation of having accidentally picked up a Seer and a mercenary of some sort, he decided to make good use of it._

_Whenever Izunia had a vision, it was a dire situation that could lead to more death at the hands of a fully consumed person – they turned into Daemons, after all. Cases of him getting dragged away by nobles also seemed to cease the more well-known his powers and his companions became._

_After a year he enjoyed having them around._

_Naturally they were annoying, as any young adults would be, but even the Healer Ardyn had to admit he enjoyed having a Seer and a mercenary around. Menda was witty and quick to react, and kept any Daemons that actually spawned or decided to go after them at bay. Izunia on the other hand seemed to never lose his optimism despite the dark way he dressed and the terrible visions that sometimes wrecked his body when a particularly dangerous transformation was about to transpire._

_It was after nearly two years that Izunia approached Ardyn as the campfire crackled softly. Menda was sound asleep and technically Ardyn had the first watch. He raised an eyebrow as the Seer sat down and stared into the fire._

“ _The other day, in that settlement in Cleigne… what was its name? Lestar?”_

“ _Lestar, yes.”_

“ _Ah. Yes, in Lestar. Y’see, that night you took care of this girl? Menda was standing guard and I had nothing to do, so I went off to see if there were any other infected people around.”_

_Ardyn hummed._

_Izunia, on the other hand, looked somewhat embarrassed and scratched the back of his head. “There were these people, obviously passing through and all, considering their dialect, but… They said something about you, me and Menda. Like, how you’re a Healer and all, but… There was this thing they said. About how I could see death and change the arms of fate.”_

_The Healer shrugged and lobbed another log of wood into the fire, “And this is worthy of discussion because…?”_

“ _I can’t,” the Seer looked up, “I can’t. Not change fate, at the very least. I just see death, and you’re the one who takes care of the whole Starscourge thing. I’m not doing anything.”_

“… _So?”_

“ _It just seems… unfair, Ardyn. You’re doing all the work, and they’re attributing it to me,” he gestured vaguely, “when all I am is, essentially, a warning of who might turn dangerous if not assisted immediately.”_

_It might have been the amount of cleansing he had done lately, but Ardyn leaned forward and flicked his companion on the forehead. He felt kind of floaty and heard the whispers of Ifrit once more, but he chose to ignore it._

“ _Might as well use that to our advantage. People will make it much easier if they believe you and I can stop the hands of fate. Who knows, maybe the Astrals will grace you with that ability in earnest.”_

_They would, even if Ardyn had mostly joked about it at this time._

* * *

He had tried to shove the responsibility for a child-aged Seer onto someone else – of course he had. Izunia had been enough trouble back then, although there was no way to easily shove a grown man into a loving family. But not a single, supposedly child-friendly person employed in the Citadel was willing to take something like a Seer home. Not even Clarus Amicitia, when he returned from Frontier only to confirm what Regis Verus had said, politely refused. Apparently his son was already bad enough to handle at this age, and there was no way knowing how bad a Seer would get.

It had gotten bad enough that Ardyn Lucis Caelum attempted to ask Cor Leonis to take care of a child.

Of course he was shot down, and the Carbuncle rolled over on the floor with a cackle. Apparently his desperation after a week of this boy being there was hilarious.

‘ _People do have a point, though,’_ Kar rolled around some more, _‘there’s no knowing what an untrained Seer is capable of. At the very least he should be able to use magic, the whole seeing death before it happens thing aside. That’s highly dangerous in the hands of an untrained child;_ _for as childish as_ he _was, he’d always been an adult_ _.’_

Indeed, Ardyn noticed as he tried to shove the child at Count Scientia, an untrained Seer was dangerous. It was that whimper and a flash of the eyes again, and the child dashed off. Ardyn just wanted to do his job as King and make sure his citizens, even if they were relatives of Izunia, were taken care of properly. Alas, the boy was huddled in a room clinging to Kar again, and crying softly.

“So,” he sighed and shrugged helplessly, “what’s the matter with Scientia?”

“Th-This man, does h-he have a… Never… Never mind.”

The maid had indeed gotten hit by a car – she had died later in hospital. A Crownsguard man also perished as they established a perimeter around Frontier as Ardyn restored the Wall; a Daemon had managed to slink past and attacked him from behind. It was always that flash of red that meant something terrible and fatal would happen to people.

So, if the glow was of any indication, Count Scientia was not to live much longer, and Ardyn pinched his nose. The man’s relatives had all died but recently, leaving him with his orphaned nephew, after several hundred years of the family being quite good at what they did – mostly care-taking and making sure things ran smoothly. His late wife had been an excellent cook as well.

He tried to pry more out of the boy, but the Seer was reluctant to say anything about this man in particular. Instead he turned back to fussing over the Carbuncle while shivering slightly, and Ardyn scowled.

An hour later a steward with a bucket of water ran past the King and the latter slunk about the hallways trying to think of a solution for the Seer issue. Naturally, of course, most certainly, Noctis had somehow managed to absorb and release energy from somewhere, the most basic of all Elemancy skills – absorption from the surroundings, and immediate release.

Ardyn just ordered the scorched rug removed with an exasperated sigh.

Noctis Verus was sobbing hysterically, and tried to apologise to the slightly scorched Kar as well as the staff that rolled up the rug, and most importantly to the King. Said King then, for the first time in several hundred years, simply looked at the Carbuncle before muttering something and grabbing him by the scruff.

There was a sickly, black-spotted yellow glow that surrounded the slight burns, and Ardyn dropped the perfectly chipper Kar a moment later. It certainly served to shut the sobbing child up.

His healing powers had long since been corrupted beyond being recommended for human healing, but it still worked on something as inane as a summon bound to him without corrupting it further than necessary. He noticed the only person left in the room staring at him with wide eyes – of course the child would be enchanted by healing powers. Every human being was, just as every Daemon would recoil from it no matter the grade of corruption. Once more he found himself pinching the bridge of his nose as he exhaled slowly. It wasn’t even a sigh, it was more contemplation, and even just in that one week Noctis had learned to differentiate between a contemplative huff and an exasperated sigh.

“Right. Naturally a Seer would be capable of using Elemancy. I will see that you learn how to control it; ‘tis the least I can do. Just promise to not set anything on fire until we found you a place to stay and can properly start your training.”

“Y-Yes, sir!”

* * *

The next day he heard that Count Scientia had collapsed on his way to Citadel. Noctis looked up from where he was sitting on the floor messing with Kar’s fur; Ardyn simply narrowed his eyes. He had expected as much, though he had to admit the man not being dead surprised him.

* * *

After one and a half weeks, he was ready to give up. Instead, once his few businesses around the Citadel concluded he grabbed Noctis by the arm and Kar by the scruff and shoved them into a room. It was one of these unused ones (it had once belonged to one of the Amicitias, several generations ago), and gestured.

“Yours.”

He also plopped Kar to the ground, where the Carbuncle shook his softly shimmering fur and made an offended squeak before jumping onto the bed.

“M-Mine?”

“Yours. At least until we find someone who is willing to take care of you.”

Noctis nodded, kind of overwhelmed by the sheer size of the room. Back in Frontier his room had not even been a quarter of this bedroom, and the vast emptiness of the room was more intimidating than he admitted. All his belongings were still in Frontier, which was now beyond the Wall (if he understood that correctly, anyway).

It was large and empty, and he missed his father.

As the King left, Noctis sat down on the floor again, with Kar cuddling up next to him.

‘ _It’ll get better.’_

“...”

‘ _We’re almost done softening up the old hard-head, that way you won’t have to leave. And your father will be better at some point too, and then you and he can leave together.’_

“… Th-Thank you.”

* * *

Three weeks and counting. Ardyn was going to lose his mind – time had no meaning to him, but these three weeks had gone by agonisingly slowly. Amicitia even had the gall to joke about that being how it felt like having kids. Much to Ardyn’s despair most people seemed to share Amicitia’s opinion of this; some even joked about this being the first Lucis Caelum in millennia.

No, that brat was a Verus Seer, a Verus Seer with a strange affinity for magic who was also a rather fast learner when he wasn’t gloomily staring into the distance or pestering the Carbuncle for attention, but a Verus Seer nonetheless.

He was fuming when Count Scientia entered the room. Most people had assumed the man still bedridden, and Ardyn had actually quite considered him dead, but the man stood there kind of pale, with his nephew somewhere behind him.

“M-My apologies, your H-Highness.”

They shooed Scientia’s nephew off to find Noctis, and the strangely shaking man admitted he was not particularly pleased with how this sudden bout of sickness had been anything but debilitating. That was one thing about the Scientia family that had always managed to catch the attention of people – they were resilient about their work ethnic. Up to the point they could work themselves to death, essentially, and Ardyn’s brows furrowed. The flash of red and the child Seer’s horrified reaction…

“You ought to really take a break if you are still unwell.”

“’Tis alright, your Highness, I just caught Ignis’ cold. Children recover remarkably well, don’t they.”

The King blinked. He had assumed that the Seer had been about to ask if Scientia had a sickness, which he indeed had now. But he was well on his way to recovery.

He turned around to look down the hallway they had sent Ignis to earlier. Scientia, too, turned around – of course the man was no fool, and his family had actually always been one who understood what Seers did ever since they first were employed at the Citadel. Thus, a moment and a strangled cough later, the man gasped. He bowed hurriedly and rushed down the hallway, calling for Ignis as much as his half-dead voice allowed.

* * *

_He keeled over at some point. People attributed it to exhaustion, but as Izunia tried to carry him out of the village he was wrecked by a fever dream of Daemons. Once they settled down and after he fruitlessly tried to wake Ardyn up, Izunia shivered and closed his eyes. It was a familiar headache, a slow pounding in the back of his head, but he tried to shove it down. He had mercifully enough started a fire just before trying to get Ardyn back to the conscious, so he could sit on the ground and rub his temples with a groan without the danger of being overrun by Daemons lurking around._

_All he saw was death, anyway. He didn’t want to see that particular death._

_He saw it regardless, the man who saved his sister, his best friend, doubling over after healing and letting out a screech that was not even human any longer. He had seen countless transformations of people into Daemons as he had worked together with Ardyn, so it wasn’t even that shocking. What was shocking was the sheer strength of that thing as it tore apart the form that was his friends, bones breaking and skin melting and blood turning into naught but black sludge._

_He got ripped out of his vision by a slap and stared into Ardyn’s narrowed eyes. The man said nothing as he glared, but it was pretty obvious what he was thinking. ‘How dare you foresee my death’._

_Later that night, Izunia lay awake listening to the crackle of the fire. He took a deep breath and sat up at that point, and clasped his hands together._

_Menda had died so suddenly, and now this. So, for the first time in his life, he looked up at the stars and begged the Astrals for mercy. He’d just wanted to help his little sister, and they had answered his prayer by making him meet Ardyn, only to take Menda later down the road._

‘ _I know he’s something like your ambassador and you might just be calling him back and turning his body into that thing, but I beg you. I beg you, Shiva – don’t be that cruel, Glacian. Eos still needs him, I_ still need him. _He’s all I have left after you called Menda where she belonged, and I tried letting her go with a smile. Please.’_

_There was just the faintest of murmurs, and Izunia recalled the conversation he had overheard about him being able to change fate, not only see it._

‘ _I could play the devil’s advocate. But I beg you, leave Ardyn in one piece.’ He had closed his eyes and his hands were still clasped together, and with a jolt he felt the cold creeping down his spine._

_Thine wish and thine curse be granted, Seer._

_Izunia lay awake shivering for the rest of the night. It seemed like no warmth from the fire and the mild summer night actually seeped into his body._

* * *

Four and a half weeks. That was the moment Ardyn realised that Seers were dangerous, whether they meant to or not. Kar had been right to laugh at him and reprimand him for trying to shove a burden not unlike Izunia off to someone else.

“So, Noctis.”

The boy cringed.

“Just be truthful here. Your father tried his best to teach you the extend of your powers.”

“… Yes.”

“But due to age and what transpired at Frontier, he was unable to teach you everything.”

“Yes.”

“What you saw was not Count Scientia, but rather his son.”

“… Y-Yes. But, I--”

“You are untrained. You somehow invoked the right to change fate. Thus it is the Count instead of the nephew who slipped and fell.”

“But I was just--”

“Then it is decided.”

Noctis stared up at the King with wide eyes. There were a billion things this could mean, especially after the fact he had seen but chosen to remain silent about two deaths that occurred outside of the Citadel and now one that occurred within. Somewhere further down the stairs Ignis Scientia was staring at his uncle in disbelief, but he already knew that there was no going back from this point; his parents were gone, his aunt was gone, it had only been a logical matter of time until his uncle would be gone as well.

Ardyn went down the stairs and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder before telling him that he was welcome to join him further upstairs once he felt like it. Noctis watched the King come back upstairs with a lump in his throat – was he expecting him to apologise to Ignis and then would send him off to go back to Frontier? It was the only thing he could think of.

Instead, Ardyn Lucis Caelum simply sighed. “You are no longer banned. I hereby revoke the banishment of the Verus family. But, and those are the conditions: You will learn how to handle your powers. I will help you best as I can with this, but most of it will be on you and what your father taught you this far. You will also own up to this mess that could have been prevented if you had spoken, and share what I have given you earlier this week with Ignis Scientia. And lastly, you will first learn how to stop invoking the right of changing the hands of fate. This will be our primary goal, we will go to suppressing visions afterwards. You will stop invoking that right at will, you will not change fate unless absolutely necessary. Are we clear?”

The boy nodded slowly. It was like permitting Menda and Izunia to come along all over again, and Ardyn couldn’t fight a bad deja vu arising as he watched Noctis hop downstairs to tap his friend on the shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

_After the last bout of collapsing mid-healing, it stopped. He would have paid it more mind if it hadn’t been so terribly convenient. The fact he would no longer randomly collapse at points also seemingly cheered Izunia, who stopped mourning his sister at this point, up a lot. So Ardyn decided to not look a gift horse in the mouth, even if there was still the distant mutter of Daemons he had already absorbed into his own body via purging and Ifrit. Although even that seemed to have been dimmed out, for it sounded very distant._

_It was like a breath of fresh air._

_So, he paid it no mind, and stared at the sunset._

“ _Winter again, huh. Sun’s setting awfully early, and the nights just get longer.”_

_He glanced to the side where Izunia was sitting on one of the small walls of the villages they had decided to take a break in this time. There were no infected people here, miraculously enough, but Ardyn was grateful for every village he passed where he and his pick-up Seer were not immediately beset by troubled people or troubling visions._

“ _As if you would complain about more sleep.”_

“ _Hey! Just saying! Longer nights mean more Daemons about!”_

_He huffed on top of his low wall, and Ardyn snorted. It felt better now, like back when he had first taken him and his sister along. The only thing about being a travelling Healer that always bothered him had been the constant solitude, and nothing but the gratefulness of the people to siphon this loneliness off. Granted, there was something absolutely enchanting about being revered as hero and saviour, but it was also so very lonely to always simply being the Healer who was way above the average mortal. Now, years later, Ardyn could admit that it was refreshing to be treated as nothing but a close companion, even if it was by someone as buffoonish as Izunia._

_Then again, being a Seer was most likely nowhere as pleasant as being a Healer. The other one of that end of the line was an Oracle. His ringed hand involuntarily curled up – he had yet to remotely mention that he was closer to the Astrals than an average Healer that was born every odd years. The Seer and the Oracle were usually meant to work with the King, but there had been no news of an Oracle, or an Oracle’s death. Which could mean that woman was not even born yet, which in itself was a troubling truth._

‘Then again,’ _some Daemon in the back of his head, or maybe Ifrit muttered,_ ‘who’s to say you are the true King? You might just be a Healer who happened to have picked up a Ring that barely answers you.’

_Ardyn sighed and sat down on the wall as well. He put his other hand over the ring as he stared at the nearly set sun._

“ _Say, Izunia,” he looked over, “do you believe in nursery rhymes and fairy tales and the like?”_

“ _Uh.” The Seer actually looked puzzled before he shrugged to signal he gave up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”_

“ _Mhm. Specifically the old fairy tales about a True King arising to cast out the Starscourge forever.”_

“ _Ooh,” Izunia kicked the wall a little, “like the woman who called you that in the last settlement?”_

_Ardyn cringed a little. The sun was just a small sliver on the horizon at this point. Izunia saw that and let out a laugh before leaning over and patting Ardyn on the shoulder affectionately._

“ _Seriously, that’s what you’re worried about? About being some sort of prophesied dude who will walk up to and smack some light back into the Infernian?”_

“ _...”_

“ _Even if you are, you’d still be the same guy. The same guy who walks through all of Lucis and even parts of Tenebrae on foot, camping in the middle of the wilderness when no sanctuaries made by past Oracles are around, who doesn’t even require payment for his services even though there’s at least a Tenebraen Healer who wants to be paid even for the most minuscule of wounds? Please. King of Light or not, you’re still the man who fished me from a lake, healed my sister, and let me tag along – you even taught me how to swim!”_

_Ardyn stared for a moment with his mouth slightly open. The sun had set by now, but Izunia still looked positively radiant with his slightly sarcastic grin._

“ _And if you’re just some Healer, well, then that’s that. A grand fate or no, you’re still you.”_

_The Healer uncurled his fist and told his inner Daemons that it didn’t matter if he had just chanced upon that ring or not as long as he had someone like Izunia by his side._

* * *

It was that very same Ring that sparkled like an eerie reminder of the past as he threw his hands up to put them on his head and stared at the chandelier. Beside him, Noctis Verus and Ignis Scientia stood, caught red-handed as the chandelier gently swayed from side to side. It jingled softly, and several of the very unnecessary crystals dangling from it had already fallen off, perhaps even hit someone in the entrance hall on the head if the shout that had lured Ardyn out of the meeting had been any indication.

A very positively screeching Carbuncle named Kar war clinging to the chandelier.

Somewhere behind Ardyn the Oracle’s daughter Lunafreya giggled as she exited the room in which he had been speaking to her and her mother until a few moments ago. Even Lady Sylva Nox Fleuret stifled a chuckle as she exited the room and saw the carnage in action. Ardyn, on the other hand, was steaming as he turned to look at the children that undoubtedly had managed to get his summon stuck on the thrice-damned chandelier. The Oracle’s son Ravus was eerily silent as well.

Just in the past week, after a few months of rigorous training, Noctis managed to control the hands of fate whenever his visions happened. He still had little to no control over his visions, but at least there would be no random people having close scrapes with death any more. Ever since that day he had been freed of one of the most time-consuming activities of his, and since he was just about to turn seven, the child had taken to causing quite a lot of mischief. The latest bout of which, apparently, had been chucking Kar as far as he could.

“Noctis.”

“Yes?”

“Explain.”

Noctis shrugged, which Ardyn saw out of the corners of his eyes. It was a motion that was very reminiscent of his ancestor; the slight leaning forward and the huffy exhale reminded Ardyn of Izunia so much it stung. Ignis, standing bolt-straight next to Noctis, actually turned away from the chandelier and snickered as Kar’s glimmering tail traced yet another arc in the air.

“Noctis Verus, explain yourself.”

“Well, as you can see… Kar went flying.”

A barely-stifled snort came from beside Noctis, and another giggle from behind Ardyn, and he could swear he was going to chuck every child standing on this floor onto the chandelier next. He still had his hands on his head and dropped them at last with a defeated sigh.

“Well then. Why did Kar go flying?”

The summon on the chandelier was slipping, and the screeching was getting louder. Ardyn shook his head slowly and Noctis and Lunafreya started giggling, while Ignis was barely able to stop laughing at this point.

“Why did Kar go flying, Noctis.”

“He said he wanted it, Sir!”

The King doubted that, and between the three laughing children and the comically slipping Carbuncle, even the Oracle, a paragon of patience and composure, let out a snort behind him as well. Even Ardyn, perpetually unsmiling unless something was going extremely well for him or Lucis, found himself fighting a twitch of the lips. It did look rather funny how more and more crystals rained down and shattered (at least the people downstairs had hidden where they would not be hit by flying debris), all while the Carbuncle was making unintelligible noises that sounded as if they were taken from some Saturday morning kids’ show.

Slipping further and further, Ardyn eventually gave the magic command for Kar to return. The Carbuncle vanished with a plop only to reappear at his side with a bright sparkle. The chandelier still swayed around dangerously, and behind him the Oracle was laughing at this point. Normally he would have thrown out anyone who interrupted his rare but important meetings with the people from beyond the Wall, but at least this time it was not a completely pointless interruption. Oracle Sylva sounded amused, which was the best possible outcome – last time she had been angry.

The only one wholly unimpressed by the entire show was Ravus Nox Fleuret. He and Ardyn both sighed and rolled their eyes at nearly the same time.

Which, in turn, made Lunafreya, Noctis and Ignis laugh even harder.

* * *

“And you… actually understand him?”

“Yes! Not that the King knows, really. It’s kind of our secret. And now it’s yours too!”

“Do you… plan on telling him? Either of you?”

“Dunno. It’s been nearly a year since my dad brought me here, and Kar was the only one outside of the King, Mr Leonis and Mr Amicitia to speak to me.”

* * *

A breach in Cleigne.

That was the reason he had set out. He’d left the capital and the children in capable hands, dragged his Carbuncle out by the scruff, and come along. Most of the people assigned to the task looked uneasy knowing there was the King along, even more so since with the King came the King’s Shield and the single most effective other member of the Crownsguard.

They had insisted they rest for night at a nearby hotel of some sort, but Ardyn had immediately dashed that comment with a snarl. It might have been several hundreds of years, but he had travelled most of Lucis on foot, repeatedly, back when he’d just been a mortal Healer. Whatever power the Daemons had, they had no control over him.

‘ _Or so you believe.’_

He rolled his eyes.

‘ _Don’t you think it’s rather weird that after your collapsing bouts stopped they never came up again? It seems very unlikely that you just absorbed less of the Daemons; you never adjusted your method of healing after all.’_

Ardyn was trying his best to not get into an argument with a seemingly mute creature in front of other people, even if Cor had run into him having a heated debate with the Carbuncle before. The rest didn’t need to know he argued with a small glittering creature about the size of a normal house cat, or worse yet, seemingly spoke to himself.

‘ _Ardyn. I know you gained the ability to summon after your bouts of collapsing stopped, but I do know one thing – their ceasing was not due to natural causes. You must have realised that as well over the years.’_

Of course he had. He had never uncovered a possible cause for it, though, and stopped paying it mind about five hundred years ago. The power to heal was incorrigibly corrupted and possibly dangerous to actual humans at this point, but ever since he had conjured up the wall there had never been a single instance of having to heal someone outside of Izunia shortly before he had been banished. He had nearly thrown up and passed out, but ever since he had never healed again – and that was not even like the collapsing bouts he had before. There were no agony-filled and Daemon-muddled fever dreams nearly choking him, no worried Izunia or Menda slapping him awake and begging him to keep his composure for a little longer until they were out of the settlement, no week of slow recovery.

‘ _What I’m trying to say, or maybe warn you of--’_

He narrowed his eyes and turned around to stare at the Carbuncle. Summons were always cryptic creatures, especially Astrals, Astral messengers, or creatures like a Carbuncle, but normally they did not give out warnings. Cor Leonis raised an eyebrow behind the Carbuncle.

‘… _Maybe try thinking more about what’s happening and what has happened to you in the past. There has to be a link between the supposedly everlasting Wall failing you now, and your powers nearly failing you back then. Oh, and. You might want to turn to your right side. There’s the Daemon that slipped through, and it definitely brought friends in with it.’_

Ardyn cursed and gave out a command just a split second before the Daemons broke through the bushes. They must have had materialised when he had inspected the Wall, otherwise he would have felt them appear. It was then a tiny voice in the back of his head that sounded a suspicious lot like Izunia suggested that maybe, just maybe, he’d completely lost touch with his healing ability through disuse over the years.

He shoved that thought back down and set one of the Daemons on fire with a low hiss.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum was here to fix the Wall, not to fight literal and mental Daemons.

* * *

Noctis Verus, on the other hand, was on a mission.

With most of the prominent figures of the Citadel gone and Ignis still asleep, there was no one barring his way to parts of the place he had not gone to. Normally Kar stopped him, or Ardyn appeared seemingly out of nowhere, swept him off his feet into a deadlock and carried him back to familiar places. But now the omnipresent King was gone and with him his Carbuncle, the man who appeared whenever the King was busy named Cor Leonis, and Clarus Amicitia. The fact the King’s Shield was gone was the most crucial to Noctis’ plan – normally the man kept the order in the part of the Citadel that Noctis was now entering.

He had been training how to sneak around recently, much to Ignis’ confusion, but Noctis needed it at this point. There were still people around who would most likely throw him back into the familiar parts again if they heard him, though thankfully they rarely moved about this late at night. Thus he snook around carefully until his gut feeling told him he was in front of the correct door.

Like nearly every door in the Citadel, it wasn’t locked. There was no reason to lock doors, after all. The Citadel was the most secure place in all of Lucis, and Noctis figured that was why his father had brought them here.

It was just too bad that Noctis wanted to go back to Frontier. He missed home, he missed the neighbours. He even missed the particularly loud and fussy squirrel in the tree in their garden at this point. He wanted to go home, but he had no idea where Frontier was, so he needed his father. Except he hadn’t seen his father since they arrived here. Clarus Amicitia had always shooed him away without any words whenever Noctis inquired about his father. Cor Leonis always looked very uncomfortable and shrugged after a while, telling him to wait a little longer. No servants answered him. Not even Ignis’ uncle had given him an answer when he had been alive, and Ignis certainly didn’t know any better than Noctis at this point.

And King Ardyn always changed the topic. He was excellent at beating around the bush, much to the child’s dismay.

As far as everyone in the Citadel was involved, Noctis’ father might as well have just vanished after collapsing. But Noctis wasn’t going to give up on finding his father – after his mother died nearly two years ago, Regis had sworn that he wouldn’t leave Noctis on his own.

The kid pulled on the door and threw it open with a small grunt – it was very heavy.

“Dad, I know you’re in there.”

No answer. It was like asking the King’s Shield for information about his father all over, and Noctis huffed. He closed the door behind him.

“Dad, please… Let’s go home...”

The silence frustrated him to no end. Frontier had never been quiet, whether the noise was people talking outside or it was just that squirrel, but here in Citadel it was quiet more often than not. And it felt like his father had just been absorbed into the place.

“… Dad.”

He tried walking towards the bed – normally his father was awake for much longer, why was he asleep – and stopped about halfway through the room. It was still eerily quiet. The only sound to speak of was very quiet breathing and his own beating heart. Something felt wrong here, and Noctis felt a familiar thumping pain in the back of his head.

He glimpsed barely anything more than a flash of black and yellow, of a yell, before something knocked him out of his vision. It hadn’t been more than a small shove, but it had been enough to interrupt whatever he had been about to see. Noctis stumbled forwards a little, then turned around with wide eyes. It was rather dark in this room, and he had been absolutely certain he had not alerted anyone with his footsteps.

He was staring at the King, who was looking right past him at the bed.

“You shouldn’t be here, little Seer.”

Noctis curled his hands into fists. He wasn’t going to cry in front of this man that had banished his family to Frontier, no matter how much he missed the place. “I’m going to wake my father, and then we’re going back home.”

Ardyn wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Verus Izunia had reacted much the same when Menda Izunia died, all those aeons ago. He had been defensive, started claiming that he was going to go home eventually, when they came across the next large settlement and he could travel with a group bound for that part of Duscae. He had actually found such a group, and left with them, but three days later he’d appeared somewhere in the bushes, panting, nearly crying, and apologised wildly. There was nothing left at home for him anyway with his entire extended family either taken by Daemons or the Starscourge and with Menda now perished in battle as well. Noctis’ expression right now was rather similar to Izunia’s back then, and it took Ardyn a good portion of his will to not flinch right there.

“Back home?”

“Back home.”

There was a certain edge to the kid’s voice, and the glowing eyes were unsettling, but Ardyn simply sighed. He had wanted to avoid this, but this child proved to be even more stubborn than the very first known Verus Seer. Thus, he shrugged.

“Your father won’t be going anywhere, sadly. I would have let you go home way earlier if that were the case, Noctis. He’s fast asleep, and we don’t know how to wake him up.”

There they were. The first tears of frustration that the King had wanted to avoid but were unavoidable at this point. “Y-You’re… lying.”

“The moment your father wakes up, you’re both free to go.” Ardyn put a hand on Noctis’ shoulder, finally looking at the kid in earnest. “But until then, you will have to stay here. That is what your father wanted.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Yes, it is as you surmised, Lady Lunafreya. The art of summoning has since been lost to time, and it is safe to assume that the King is the only one who can still summon, thanks to the passage of time meaning little to him.”

The Oracle’s daughter shrugged a little. She had always accompanied her mother, but this time she had not been allowed in the throne room along with her, and her brother was still in Tenebrae. Which meant the older girl was dreadfully bored.

Or had been until she had run into the both of them and now sat on the bed stroking the Carbuncle. Noctis sat next to her with his legs crossed and looked rather pleased. After all he barely got to interact with people from outside the Citadel, let alone people from outside Lucis. And as much as Ignis was confused by her presence, the Oracle’s daughter was a surprisingly pleasant person to be around. Her voice was gentle and soothing as she asked about the creature rolled up on the bed.

“I see. Thank you for the answer.”

* * *

_It had been simple curiosity that had driven him to leave Lucis. After all, he had to yet hear of an Oracle doing her work – had the old family that had produced Oracles died out somehow? Tenebrae was far enough removed for news to not reach Lucis when the Oracle’s family was involved. Thus, shortly after the bouts of collapsing ended, Ardyn packed his things and left silently. Izunia followed as always, at first confused but then quickly realised what the Healer was trying to accomplish._

_And Izunia would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least slightly curious about what Tenebrae looked like. Daemons made travelling rather hard at night, and the scorching sun made it nigh impossible during the day. Every person who made it that far and back was revered as some sort of miniature Oracle themselves, and when he was a child one such person lived nearby. Her stories had always been fascinating, but Izunia had never seen himself going there in the future._

_The closer they got to Tenebrae, the tenser Ardyn became. He had been approached by a Messenger in the dead of night, a man sent by Ramuh, who had asked him to return to Lucis and focus on his task there, for the culmination of the conflict was to come to a head within the year. But Ardyn, stubborn as he was, marched on. It took two months to reach Tenebrae on the back of a trained Chocobo, but it dragged on and on on foot. He didn’t mind, he was used to travelling on foot for extended periods. The only thing he realised was, the further out of Lucis they got, the less people knew him or expected him to help them._

_They reached Tenebrae with the first rays of the summer sun, the light dappling through the extensively lush greenery. Ardyn had been to many gorgeous places in Lucis, but nothing compared to Tenebrae in summer. Even though it was hot by any means, it felt different here. Less choking, less oppressive. Truly, it was a marvel to behold whenever the breeze shifted through the leaves and made the spots of sun move._

_It was then when Izunia finally worked up the courage to ask what Ardyn’s plans were now that they were here. Tenebrae was not as extensive as Lucis, but news of the old Oracle family might not have made it that far yet, if there even were any news. After all, not a single person seemed to have known about the Oracles in Tenebrae._

_It was then that a Lady of House Nox Fleuret appeared accompanied by Messenger Gentiana, which confirmed Ardyn’s fears even before he asked for an answer he did not want to hear._

“ _The old line of Oracles ended at the teeth and claws of Daemons, Healer. She was my liege, and I shall continue her work to the best of my ability, but the originally chosen Oracles have died out.”_

_Healer and Messenger eyed each other coldly as Izunia chatted up the new Oracle. It was a strange gathering – Oracle, Healer, Messenger and Seer. It vaguely sounded like a prophecy of old, and Ardyn scowled when he heard Izunia’s clear laugh ring across the clearing they had settled on for the night._

_Gentiana cleared her throat to catch his attention, and he narrowed his eyes at her._

“ _Soleil Nox Fleuret will not cause you any trouble in your homeland, Healer.”_

_He huffed. “Not that I expected her to, Messenger.”_

“ _It is the Seer you should watch more closely, not the Oracle.”_

“ _Izunia? Please.”_

_He knew he was not supposed to dismiss a Messenger’s concerns, especially not one whose Astral was the one that guided Seers, but the thought of Izunia being dangerous was ridiculous. He had fished the young man out of a lake, and Seers were considerably weaker than Healers or Oracles anyway. They were barely above than the average mortal, and that only because they were able to use the elements to their advantage. Even then they were stuck with the very basic spells, not the advanced ones the Oracles and Healers commanded._

“ _Mayhap this is what you believe, but this Seer is closer to death than other Seers before him. Take heed, Healer of the Starscourge, for this man might be your downfall ‘ere you can do what your destiny tells you to.”_

_They saw off Soleil and Gentiana about an hour later, the Oracle-in-training smiling as Izunia waved to her. Ardyn just offered a polite tilt of the head, but Soleil understood fully that he had not particularly liked whatever Gentiana had told him. The Messenger was as cryptically silent as always and followed the Oracle as they returned to the nearest settlement as long as the sun still dappled through the treetops onto the ground._

_Night fell silently, and the fire crackled gently on the clearing. Ardyn was leaning against a tree, while Izunia had managed to climb onto a low-hanging branch. He was moving his legs to the rhythm of the tune he was humming, and even Ardyn, through half-closed eyes, found himself humming along. They would have to return to Lucis, with Ardyn know knowing he was most likely still what the Astrals penned him for – there was an Oracle. It was as much a relief as it was terrifying, but he would not think about it too much. They hummed for a while like this, only the breeze rustling through the leaves accompanying them, until Izunia stopped and leaned off the branch. He clicked his tongue to catch Ardyn’s attention, and the Healer looked up at the Seer._

“ _Come up here. The branch’s more than stable enough for the two of us.”_

_It was a stupid idea, as stupid as jumping into a lake while being unable to swim had been, but Ardyn decided to humour Izunia’s stupid ideas for once. Maybe it was with how calming Tenebrae was, but he found himself relaxed for the first time in ages, and thus hauled himself onto the tree. Admittedly, he had never really climbed them before, which explained why he struggled a little until he was in reach of Izunia’s offered hand. He tried grabbing the hand but nearly fell, which only made the Seer laugh before he leaned over more and grabbed the struggling man._

“ _You’d think an esteemed person like you would be better at climbing trees.”_

“ _Wha...”_

“ _To escape the attention of the masses! Nothing makes people leave you on your own than climbing on a tree as high as you can, and this branch is barely off the ground, Ardyn!”_

“ _Why on earth would I need to climb trees to--”_

“ _Oh, right, right. You never had to escape your weird mother and her even weirder obsession with your sister. Now, now. Hrr... Come on, you heavy lump! Help me out a little here!”_

_They were both laughing at this point, with Ardyn more than clueless as to how he was supposed to help Izunia out, but at last the Seer managed to pull him onto the branch. It swayed dangerously and the leaves on it were rustling loudly, and for a split second Ardyn thought it was going to break off, but Izunia just waved his hand in front of the Healer’s face and immediately dashed his fears._

“ _Like I said, strong enough for the both of us. See? No need to worry.”_

_Ardyn was leaning against the tree trunk while Izunia went back to swinging his legs back and forth. He picked up the song he had been humming before and continued it. Ardyn recognised it at this point – it was a melody very widely spread throughout Lucis as lullaby, although the lyrics differed depending on the region. The version Izunia would sing if he sang would be the Duscaen version, and Ardyn blinked._

_When on earth had he started thinking about Izunia singing, let alone the Duscaen version of the most common Lucian lullaby?_

_He shook his head slightly and closed his eyes. It was nearly summer, and the Tenebraen night was warm, especially that early in. It was nice, very nice, and Ardyn decided to enjoy it, because they would have to return to Lucis sooner rather than later. Most likely the march back would begin tomorrow. Once more Ardyn started humming along as the campfire crackled below them and the leaves rustled above them. For just a moment he felt completely at peace._

_It was interrupted by the low hiss and the sudden tilt in reality that always came when he was not actively trying to suppress the Daemons and they decided to harass him. His eyes shot open and the world turned, and then the world turned more._

_He was sliding off the branch. Izunia reacted faster than he had ever seen the Seer move, the red-rimmed eyes speaking of why he was moving that fast to begin with. As sudden as it began it stopped when Izunia grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him against the trunk again. He buried his face in Ardyn’s shoulder sighing in relief._

“ _When you said… not to worry… I suppose you didn’t mean… falling asleep up here.”_

_He didn’t get an answer from the Seer. Izunia’s fingers were just digging into his shoulders for about a minute straight before his iron grip lightened a little._

“ _I’m alright, okay? I’m fine.”_

_Of course that was not reassuring when it was so very clear what would have happened if Izunia had not reacted. They had spent so much time together that Ardyn barely even noticed these eyes at this point, but whenever he did they looked completely out of place. Maybe it was that unearthly blue, rimmed with a very light red, that gave Izunia the look of a half-transformed Daemon sometimes, but just for a split second Ardyn was certain Izunia was making the garbled noise Daemons made when they were in their death throes. Just for a split moment._

_Then Izunia looked up again. There was still this slight red glow in his eyes, and his entire expression could be summarised in one word: pained._

“ _How many… How many times have you...”_

“… _Shiva’s really got it out for you.”_

“… _A number, Izunia, give me a--”_

_He was interrupted by Izunia shaking his head and pressing one hand on Ardyn’s mouth._

_They both remained silent for several minutes. Izunia was staring down the branch until his eyes finally returned to normal, at which point he dropped his hand. Another warm breeze went through the tree._

_Just as Ardyn was about to try speaking to the Seer once more, the Seer moved again. It was just a small, very quick look at the Healer’s face, and right as Ardyn considered opening his mouth, Izunia moved. Within a split second Ardyn found himself once more pinned to the tree, with Izunia using what little weight he had to keep him there._

_The Seer was uncomfortably close when he finally breathed out, “Four times, today included.”_

“ _Four…?” There was a sudden rush, not unlike the one that had nearly sent him plummeting to his death earlier, but it rather felt like a surge of air instead of reality shifting around him. It also made him wonder what the four times Izunia had seen his death had been._

_Ardyn wasn’t able to complete that thought. Izunia had closed what little space between their faces had remained with a kiss._

_Somewhere through the panic that muddled his mind along with the cacophony of the Daemons, Verus Izunia realised he’d finally lied to Ardyn – it had been five times._

* * *

They had decided to let the children sleep as they were, passed out and sprawled on Noctis’ bed, but after she had left the room and closed the door, the Oracle’s brows furrowed.

“A Verus Seer.”

“Observant as always. Normally people don’t realise that until he’s had a vision and is staring at them with blank, red eyes.”

“Beside the point, Your Highness.” Somewhere behind her Gentiana shifted. “I thought after whatever transpired when Soleil became the first Nox Fleuret Oracle, the Verus were banned from most of Lucis and especially Insomnia.”

Ardyn couldn’t help but sigh and shrug at this point. “So the Messenger told you. Whatever. Times change, especially after a hundred or so generations. I banned them, yes, but I can hardly toss a six year old child out into the wilderness after his father drives to Insomnia while essentially bleeding out just to deliver a warning about the Wall in the region they lived in breaking. And before either of you ask, I did try finding someone else to take care of him. It would just be very inconsiderate of me to do so, and could and would endanger not only other people’s lives but also the boy’s.”

Sylva tapped her chin thoughtfully, but behind her Gentiana cleared her throat. Both King and Oracle looked at the Messenger in confusion – a Messenger did not need to ask for permission to speak around mortals, even more so since she chose to speak in the old tongue, which only King, Oracles and Seers understood to begin with.

He is correct. Leaving the child to fend for himself would be dangerous.

“Dangerous?” The Oracle still looked unimpressed. “I would understand untrained magic, but King Ardyn took more than care of teaching him how to control it at this point. Two years is enough time to teach Nox Fleuret children how to control their magic, and they control a power much higher than what the Verus Seers can manage.”

It is not the other people that would be endangered if he were left to his own devices.

Now even Ardyn had to cross his arms. Messengers were always rather stingy with their information, especially the one that resided in Insomnia. Gentiana was downright chatty compared to Bahamut’s envoy.

Have you never wondered why the even young Seers looked aged beyond their years, King?

He had, in fact. But after a week it was rather clear that Regis Verus would not stand up and tell him the solution to this puzzle that Ardyn accidentally uncovered. Even Sylva looked interested by now.

To change the future is to shed part of your life. That is the price the Verus pay for every changed future, for every changed fate.

‘ _Four times.’_

Ardyn cringed. He had never considered a changed fate came with a price – though it made sense now that he thought about it. Shiva’s envoy exhaled slowly and steadily before opening her eyes.

What the King did was wise, though it came from unwise decisions.

With that the Messenger fell silent again, and Sylva’s attention turned back to the King. She reminded Ardyn of so many past Oracles. The Nox Fleuret were always rather similar, especially the women. It most likely was the power that was passed down that made them so similar in behaviour. There were of course outliers to that rule, but most Oracles of Tenebrae were soft-spoken, well-mannered, and stubborn enough to move entire mountains to get what they desired. Mercifully Sylva never exerted that particular part of her personality whenever she was in Lucis. Lunafreya was already turning out to be a little more hard-headed than her mother, more taking after her late father and her brother in that regard.

“Did you know this?”

He shook his head. “I worked with the first of the Verus line, and if the lifespan-diminishing effect had been in place when I met him, then he certainly proved to be quite the liar for someone whose name meant truth. No, I do not think it was in effect when I met him, but came into effect later on.”

It had most likely been in effect in Tenebrae, with how scared Izunia had looked, and it took Ardyn a great portion of his will to not choke up. Everything after Tenebrae had gone to quite literal Hellfire, what with Ifrit having gathered enough power and unleashing quite the Daemon to hunt the Healer the gods chose down. Ardyn shook his head slightly.

“Besides, I would have noticed him rapidly ageing. He did look quite youthful until the day he received his banishment and he went into exile. It just makes me wonder what Noctis’ father did to look like this.”

Sylva sighed. “It stands to reason to believe that the power changed over the years, much like an Oracle’s did. The newer ones are much more powerful than the ones of yore, with the exception of Soleil Nox Fleuret – not a single woman of our family ever proved to be more powerful than her, but that much is a given. Perhaps the Verus Seers gained more and more power, at the cost of decimating their lifespan faster than the one before them.”

The King threw a quick glance over his shoulder at the closed door. He hated admitting that he had actually started caring about the child.

* * *

“And how long have _you_ known that?”

“Beg pardon, Your Highness?”

“Don’t play dumb, Messenger.”

Noctis had insisted that he take Lunafreya around the Citadel together with Kar – Ignis was still fast asleep – so Ardyn remained behind until he felt that ungodly stare that always sent shivers down his spine. Behind him, Cor Leonis sighed in exasperation.

“That he would change fate from his lifespan? All along. I underestimated the intensity of it, though. Regis Verus’ state implies he had changed a fair share of fates in his short life.”

Finally he turned around to shoot a glare at Bahamut’s Messenger. Cor had spent a fair share of Ardyn’s life at Citadel, though he often vanished for a few years. He had only reappeared a few years before Regis and Noctis appeared; now that Ardyn thought about it he had most likely appeared within the week of Noctis’ birth. Ever since the Marshal Messenger just remained as cryptic as ever while also being one of the few people who admitted Noctis Verus and Regis Verus existed within the Citadel now.

“And when were you planning on telling me?”

“Quite… frankly, due to your… _involvement_ with Verus Izunia, I had assumed you… _knew_.”

“You damn well know he was banished for lies that nearly _cost me my life!_ ”

“Yes, of course, but--”

Ardyn merely snarled and whisked past the Messenger. At least Gentiana was helpful, but that mostly came from her being one of Shiva’s. Shiva at the very least was brutally honest while keeping up the facade of being a cold goddess of death that had to be mysterious. Bahamut had no reason to be like this, and Cor Leonis as Messenger even less so.

Said Messenger was standing in the room looking rather startled now that the King was gone. He also nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a tiny voice ask for him.

“Marshal… What was that about?”

Of course Ignis Scientia would only pretend to be asleep. Cor sighed.

“Nothing. Just a minor dispute.”

Ignis knew it was more than a minor dispute when the King marched off in a huff, but he decided to take the bait and leave that mystery alone until a better opening presented itself to him. At the very least Noctis wasn’t around to have heard that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: "barely off the ground" in the Verus Izunia Measurement System™ is between 5-6 metres. Ardyn would've fallen awkwardly and snapped his neck upon colliding with the ground, hence the vision and all.
> 
> Being a Seer doesn't mean you have to be clever, okay.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Body Horror warning for chapter!

Oracle Sylva Nox Fleuret died on her way back to Tenebrae. Her daughter Lunafreya and her son Ravus survived the Daemon attack thanks to her noble sacrifice.

* * *

_It came to him with a sudden rush of air. It felt like someone knocked the wind out of his lungs, especially with the strange fever wrecking his body, but before he knew it he had spat out words and released a surge of energy. Unloading elements was not unheard of, especially when the Healer, Seer or Oracle was sick, but this was no release of charged-up elemental energy. It was a sudden gust that went through him and escaped, and within a second Izunia was trying to keep him standing._

“ _Whoa there! You’ve not okay, you stubborn old mutt, you should’ve stayed down for the day! Seriously, the hells was that, Ardyn?”_

“… _Wind.”_

“ _Duh! I thought the elements were fire, ice and thunder, or is that some other stuff that makes Seers like me weaker than Healers like you or Oracles like Lady Soleil?”_

“… _No, idiot.”_

_Izunia was forcing Ardyn to sit down at this point, as gently as he could, as the world around Ardyn kind of turned. He had felt that before, whenever he had spoken to the Astrals. This strange, floaty feeling as if he was detaching himself from his own body and the energy that seemed to radiate from something around him… except that once he was sitting on the ground, Izunia hissed and turned to look around._

“ _Something’s off here.”_

“… _You… you feel it, too?”_

“ _Yes. And that’s what’s freaking me out; normally only you feel that kind of stuff and I hear shreds of a disembodied voice belonging to Messengers like Lady Gentiana.”_

_They both looked around kind of spooked – they knew nothing about Tenebrae due to being Lucian, and this could be some local flora or fauna that had powers that were unknown in Lucis. Which might prove to be rather dangerous to the both of them, especially with Ardyn as dizzy as he was right now._

_After a few minutes the strange feeling vanished, and Ardyn tried standing up. In the same moment he and Izunia finally noticed a strange shimmer in a nearby bush, and a small bark called out for them. Izunia offered an arm for Ardyn to pull himself up on, and the two of them edged closer to the bush slowly._

_It was some sort of creature that gleamed in a light blue, with a streak of darker blue going down its back. Long ears and a bushy, parted in three ways tail were dangled up in the bush, and large eyes stared up at the two men almost pleadingly. The creature gave a meek chirp and Izunia bent over with a laugh and started untangling it._

“ _Well, colour me surprised, Ardyn. That’s a Carbuncle.”_

“… _?”_

_Izunia had freed the creature from the bush and picked it up._

“ _A summon! Those creatures really only appear when help is needed.”_

_When help is needed._

_Gentiana’s words echoed in the back of Ardyn’s head as he watched his companion flick a leaf off the Carbuncle. Maybe they should remain in Tenebrae, and leave Lucis to fend for itself. There were plenty people who could fend off the Infernian or the Starscourge._

_But none could heal the Scourge._

* * *

Tenebrae had barely changed since those ancient times of when the first Nox Fleuret Oracle arose. It was still the same lush place, and it made Ardyn’s skin crawl. He had come here to pay respects to the woman he had worked with so closely in the last few years, and to make certain her children were in at least somewhat capable hands. Gentiana had dashed any worries for the bloodline he had almost immediately after the funeral, insisting that she would teach young Lunafreya and to guide Ravus when he required assistance as next King of Tenebrae. With that, the King was dismissed to go back to the veil of his Wall once more, and Ardyn would have loved doing so – but something stopped him.

The region was familiar, and despite him knowing better, he left the settlement in the middle of the night. In Lucis it was safe thanks to his Wall, but here in Tenebrae nothing kept the Daemons at bay other than hunters and light. Ardyn was quite confident he could take out any Daemons, but something about this night in particular made him leave the security of a settlement. As he watched a handful Daemons slink past, he realised he had forgotten how eerie nights could be when the near constant glow of the Wall was nowhere to be seen.

At the very least the small fry seemed particularly uninterested in the man watching them – that was different. Back when he had wandered Lucis Daemons had attacked as soon as they saw an opening, and a single man outside at night definitely was an opening. Even two of them, and clearly armed, had been considered an opening; he and Izunia had gotten attacked plenty of times, and even before Menda’s death the three of them had gotten ambushed at points. Right now the goblins barely even paid attention to him, and Ardyn barely paid attention to them. Maybe things were different here in Tenebrae.

He learned his lesson when he turned around and found the air knocked out of him. Of course a larger Daemon would be around if the smaller ones did not dare to pounce on easy prey. Ardyn barely even noticed the fact his chest had been cleanly run through with a sword before the Daemon removed its weapon – one of these samurai types. Those were fairly modern, which explained why he had not anticipated one being around. He hacked a little, with blood bubbling somewhere in his lungs. He knew it was nearly black at this point, much like a Daemon’s, and toppled over.

The world vanished into darkness.

* * *

Noctis shot awake because the familiar weight next to him vanished, and he caught the last wisps of Kar vanishing, like a flight flickering out.

* * *

He loathed cleaning up messes. But sadly, as it were, Messengers _usually_ cleaned up messes. _Especially_ the ones bound to certain people, and Bahamut had deemed it more than fitting to bind his renegade Messenger to the most infuriating person to have ever existed. At least the Nox Fleuret Oracles had the plus point of being mortal, which meant even the most stubborn woman would one day die.

That, _of course_ , did not apply to His Royal Majesty King Ardyn Lucis Caelum I, the King of Lucis, the man mortals just called the Immortal King. _Much to Cor’s dismay_. He had been stuck with the man since the wall got erected, and ever since his life had been hellish. In the early Lucian days of the Wall there was a great amount of Daemons that still needed to be purged, and this idiot King got himself killed on a regular basis. At least that had stopped after a few years, but goodness, Cor had hoped he would never have to drag Ardyn’s corpse out of a ditch again.

Yet he found himself somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Tenebrae of all places.

Noctis had woken half of the staff still at Citadel with his shrieking when he demanded answers from Clarus – the Carbuncle had vanished over night, and Cor _knew_ that he would have to drag this infernally infuriating King out of a ditch for the first time in a few thousand years. How precisely he ended up in the middle of nowhere he did not even question (once the man had gotten strung up by Daemons, for Shiva’s sake!) but he did curse his idiot King and went through the bushes.

Mercifully this generation had completely forgotten the fact their King could die, so no one really paid it any mind when Kar vanished, but Cor had just accepted his fate with silent suffering. How in Eos had he gone from being one of the most feared men in all of Lucis to King Ardyn’s stupid errand boy? Then again he had gotten into an argument with Bahamut, which had prompted the Astral to bind him to the man he deemed too much of an idiot to be of any use.

He stifled a groan when he found the discarded and unmoving body of the King about an hour and several thorny bushes later.

“Get up.”

He was just nudging the man with his foot. Anyone else would have been spooked beyond reckoning by the sight of a man covered in reddish-black blood and no visible injuries where the clothes were torn, but a Messenger was not a normal person, and Cor was used to this nonsense anyway.

“Congratulations, you got yourself killed by a Yojimbo. Now get up, Your Highness.” It wasn’t nudging at this point, it was soft kicking. “Please, just get up already. When I left the young Verus was attempting to get answers as to where your little pet had vanished to. No one in the Citadel knows it is related to you getting yourself murdered, and I certainly do not want children finding that out.”

Finally, a small shift. Cor was tempted to repeat what he had done about 600 years ago, which had been grabbing the man and slapping the taste out of his mouth while returning him to the waking world. Alas, there really was no reason to this time. As long as this buffoon got up, summoned his Carbuncle again, and went for Insomnia as fast he he could, nothing would happen this time. _If_ he got up. Whatever that shift had been, Ardyn had gone back to being as still as death.

“Alright. See you around, then.”

That finally got the desired reaction out of the man. Cor heard him groan and sit up.

“You’re really damn cold for a supposed Messenger. Even Gentiana’s less of a stick in the mud, and she was sent by _Shiva_.”

“Perhaps it is because Lady Gentiana was not needlessly tormented from the moment she arrived. She was a teacher and companion to the first Nox Fleuret Oracle, and has continued being a companion of all future Oracles. Whereas I, upon my arrival, was nearly speared in the face thrice, and actually speared through the lower abdomen once. All of this took place within an hour, if you can remember anything that far back.”

Of course Ardyn remembered. It had been shortly after he had managed to erect the Wall, during a time where he so very desperately wanted to be on his own. After all, he had permitted only one person to stay with him, and the near-death experience and subsequent banishment of Izunia were too fresh on his mind, along with the physical strain that the Wall exerted on him. A Messenger tag-along like Soleil had with Gentiana was the last thing Ardyn wanted and needed, especially since he had Kar. But alas, he was then stuck with Kar the Carbuncle and Cor Leonis the Messenger.

He sighed at the same time as Cor and finally pulled himself to his legs.

“Yojimbo is what people call these?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Good to know. Say, you wouldn’t happen to be as overly prepared as always, Cor?”

Instead of an answer the man tossed the King a backpack, most likely with either sewing materials or entirely new clothes.

“Goodness gracious. My thanks.”

* * *

It was quickly turning into the worst week at the Citadel. The King returned kind of pale, but thankfully enough with Kar in tow. That put an end to Noctis’ crying.

On the second day, Clarus Amicitia never turned up for work. Apparently he and both his children were down with a cold. Which, in turn, led to several people trying to play King’s Shield and getting way too close to their on-edge King. Ardyn snapped halfway through the day, and it took him a lot of willpower to not incinerate at least three people in front of Noctis, Ignis and Kar.

On the third day, Noctis started sniffling. Apparently his pestering of Clarus during the time Kar was gone had made him catch whatever Clarus had been hatching, and sick children were something most people here preferred not to work with – most of them had their own children to take care of, and Ardyn refused to be called something like this Seer’s second father. Especially with his actual father still alive but out of commission.

On the fourth day, Ignis sprained an ankle. Mercifully enough he was more mature than the by then fully sick Noctis, and took his injury with a grace no one expected out of a twelve-year-old boy. Ardyn was ready to toss every single sheet of paper he came across out of every window, and the only thing that stopped him from doing so was Bahamut’s Messenger’s ever-nagging voice.

Keep your dignity, Healer Ardyn Lucis Caelum.

He was pretty sure that despite Noctis being completely out of it, he understood what the Messenger had said. Somewhere from the bed where the sick child was half-asleep on came a low cackle that did definitely not belong to a human.

On the fifth day Ardyn half expected a meteor to crash right onto him. Nothing of the sort happened, and finally he got news from the actual King’s Shield. Clarus would be back next week – it was a simple cold that had taken him, his song Gladiolus and his daughter Iris out of commission.

On the sixth day a maid ran away from Noctis’ room screaming. And a steward. And at least three more maids, and five stewards. And a doctor. Even Kar fled the room.

It was Ignis who then knocked on the door of the room where Ardyn was having another ‘minor dispute’ with Cor.

“Come in,” Ardyn said loudly before glaring at the Messenger and shooting him a hissed “This isn’t over yet, Leonis.”

“S-Sorry to interrupt… but… something’s wrong with Noctis.”

“He’s sick. Of course he’s going to be--”

That was when Ardyn felt it. Something feverish and familiar seeped through the Citadel, like an infection that was festering. He inhaled sharply and pushed past Cor.

“… Do tell. What is wrong with him?”

Ignis looked back down the hallway. “I don’t know… but it’s weird. He hissed at the maid and she ran away screaming. He did the same to the other maids, and I’m pretty sure the stewards. Then when the doctor you ordered to come came, he tried to get close to him, but before we knew it he was running out of the room yelling and holding his arm and… I’m pretty sure he was bleeding. We thought Kar was in one of his moods and attacked the man, but even Kar left the room after a while.”

Ardyn caught a familiar sparkle somewhere behind Ignis, and narrowed his eyes.

“Do you have anything witty to say for yourself, Kar, or will you just glower behind Ignis like a smug fat and useless cat?”

‘ _Rude. I am neither fat nor useless, but I did indeed kind of want to glower some more. But alas, you deny me even this simple pleasure.’_

Ignis knew at this point that only Noctis, the King and Cor understood what the Carbuncle said, and it frustrated him to to end. Especially since the King’s face contorted from mild annoyance to fury – whatever the Carbuncle had said must have been rather… petty.

‘ _Oh, come on. At least I don’t lie unlike certain people you banished. Oh, by the way. You might want to really check up on Noctis before something terrible happens. You do know you never healed the Starscourge completely.’_

Ardyn ignored the jab at his past; and instead threw a look at Cor, then at Ignis.

“Ignis. Do me a favour, and check on Noctis’ father. There’s no rush or anything, but if anything is strange about him tell one of the nurses and then go see Cor.”

“Y-Yes!”

With that the boy took off. The Carbuncle swiped a paw across one of its ears and followed Ignis, and Ardyn exhaled slowly.

The familiar feeling was pulsing now, like a tiny hammer trying to force its way into Ardyn’s skull. Even Cor looked mildly uncomfortable.

“I should have known that the breach would bring it back.”

I admit, so should I. Yet neither of us considered it a possibility.

“Can I… count on you to kick sense back into me? I mean, of course, I only just bit the dust again last week, but… I will just need a healthy kick or slap, and I do know you do love tormenting me whenever possible.”

Again, I admit as much, but is this truly wise?

“Do I have a choice? I’m the only Healer left, and cursed with living as long as an Astral thanks to corruption. I am quite certain I have enough control over my own power yet that I can heal without harming. And I certainly won’t sit by and let the Starscourge take hold in the Citadel.”

Cor and Ardyn glared at each other for a moment, before the Messenger sighed and shrugged.

Bahamut sent me to observe, not to beat common sense into you. Heavens know I tried.

Ardyn cracked a small smile and turned around to jog out of the room.

* * *

_It happened when they returned to Lucis. Something felt wrong, completely incorrect, and Ardyn had hoped he would be spared from immediately being roped into healing. Alas, his hopes were immediately dashed when someone recognised him and the Seer and asked for his assistance. Izunia just pat his back lightly and muttered something about this being over faster than Ardyn would expect._

_Too bad the vision came once Ardyn had gone, and Izunia snapped out of it nearly screaming in terror._

“ _What was that?!”_

_He dashed off to find the Healer as fast as he could, but this settlement was larger than he had anticipated._

_Ardyn, on the other hand, was faced with yet another child afflicted. It hadn’t been sick for long, that much was clear, but the symptoms were strong. It seemed to be oozing a dark sludge, its face was contorted in a guttural hiss that scared most of the other people off, and he was quite certain it had grown claws at this point. Thankfully early cases were easy to heal – Menda had been easy to heal back then as well._

_This time, however, something felt off. There was the low hissing of Daemons in the back of his head again, and his fingers felt cold and stiff as he started the procedure. Healing was mentally and physically taxing now that Daemons had taken hold of him, but at least he was still in full control of his self and his powers – or so he thought. The boy was writhing underneath his hands, like any person afflicted with the Starscourge did, but instead of the darkness starting to dissipate it seemed to intensify. It was like a cloud that formed around him and that threatened to choke him._

_Claws raked through his arms, but he barely even felt the pain. Something was dulling his mind as he tried to heal and instead corrupted, and in the back of his head there was a cacophony of screeching laughter. But he couldn’t let up now, he had to heal. That was what he was given this power for, he had to heal, there was no way he would stop now, he was the only one who could--_

_It was a kick that brought him back to his senses. Reality shifted violently and Ardyn felt bile rise to his throat – Izunia had accidentally kicked him while shoving him out of the way. Once reality settled he felt the sting of his torn open arms. Everything smelled like blood and burnt flesh, and even though his sight was hazy he saw Izunia fend off a terrifying creature that was half stuck between being a child and being a Daemon._

_There had been cases where they had been too late, where nothing worked. Normally these cases were given a merciful and fast death before they could transform, and these bodies were burned. But nothing looked even as remotely terrifying as this half-transformed creature, with gangly limbs that flailed as Izunia fought it off. There was black ooze everywhere, it was on Ardyn’s hands, it was seeping from the body, it sprayed everywhere as Izunia beat the creature back with the lance he always carried around. It dripped off Ardyn’s face, and it seemed to even come from his wounds, and the Healer stared ahead with wide and blank eyes as the Seer finally managed to deliver blows to this thing that had been a child._

_It were these screeches that threw him off. It was half the voice of a boy who was not a day older than thirteen, but it was half the infernal growl of a Daemon, much different from the voices in the back of his head that were hooting and hollering in glee at this point._

_Finally the people realised something was going terribly wrong in there – they had just been discussing the Seer suddenly rushing into the room. They burst in with weapons drawn and saw the Seer losing his footing and nearly getting his throat slashed for his troubles, and he Healer was sitting there bleeding and looking terrified. They intervened, at least, and Ardyn cringed with every blow the creature took; these people had no idea what had actually happened._

_Izunia on the ground in a puddle of black grime. The death throes of this twisted thing that had been a child mere minutes ago. The cries of the mother as she begged the Astrals for mercy for her dead child._

_Ardyn finally reacted to one of the villagers shaking him by reeling backwards, leaning over, and throwing up._

* * *

It was a familiar sight. Yellow eyes glinting at him, the choking feeling of something terrible happening. At the very least, other than the eyes, there was no transformation yet. No claws. No sharp teeth. No terribly broken spines or bones that seemed to give way to something entirely inhuman.

There was black ooze seeping out of Noctis’ skin as Ardyn entered the room. A low, guttural hiss that was distorted but still reminiscent of the child’s voice.

‘ _Yoooouuuuuu… Aaaaaaaardyyyyyyn.’_


	6. Chapter 6

Ever since ancient Tenebrae, he had been unable to heal without serious issues coming up. The child in the border village was one of many that underwent a terrifying transformation and attacked him. Other times, when he succeeded with healing, the entire world started spinning and spun out of existence for several hours. It had mostly been thanks to Izunia slapping him back to life that he was still around. Most of his other magic abilities worked just fine, but he couldn’t overdo it any longer without getting so sick he had to sit down. It was not debilitating in any case, and since he managed to erect and hold up the Wall he barely had to fight his way out of situations.

Which meant he was rusty.

If Noctis underwent transformation, Ardyn knew he would be done for, and that it would prove troublesome if someone other than Cor found him in that state. So, once the child was done hissing out his name, he simply shrugged.

“Indeed. I would have thought you and your kind would have forgotten my name by now. Not that it really matters, but you certainly chose the worst and most inopportune moment to reveal yourself. In fact – your host will bring you naught of value. He’s a child.”

He needed to get close enough to heal without aggravating this thing any further, and this would be the most dangerous task. Back in the day he always had Izunia, who managed to use his little weight with surprising strength to gain the upper hand on people who were aggressive and nearly transformed. During the early days of the Wall he had the Amicitias to hold the last stragglers down. Now he only would have had Cor, but holding a ten year old child down seemed a little excessive and would have distracted Ardyn terribly. He needed to have his wits together to handle this, and as much help as the Messenger pinning Noctis down would have been, it was simply out of the question.

Maybe there was a chance Noctis would turn out to be one of the non-thrashing variant. Those had existed as well, some lower-end transformations that resigned to their fate at the hand of the Healer.

‘ _It matters liiiiitle.’_

“Oh, it matters quite a lot. Children are physically inferior to grown adults, and normally turn into weaker Daemons to boot. You certainly gimped yourself there, manifesting and taking over a child and all.”

He was grasping at straws in a gentle attempt to get as close as he could. While it was true that children usually turned into _smaller_ Daemons, they were as powerful or as weak as whatever kind they turned into. He thought back to what Cor had called a Yojimbo – he would certainly face more trouble than it was worth it if Noctis turned into a Daemon of that kind.

Somewhere in the back of his head, among the usual Daemon noise he almost heard Izunia chewing him out for being so fatalistic. There was no way in hell he would let Noctis turn into a Daemon under his care while the boy’s father had sacrificed nearly everything to get his child into Insomnia.

After all, Ardyn had promised him that he would get to go home together with his father when the man woke up again.

‘ _Hoooooow long as it beeeeeeen, anywaaaay?’_

“…”

Rule number one of healing; pay no attention to Daemonic rambling. Ardyn held his breath for a moment – this was harder than he remembered it being. Sadly the Daemon picked up on him being unable to phase it out completely, and all of a sudden Noctis moved from his bed. He jumped off it and circled around Ardyn, who had moved to the middle of the room.

“Goodness gracious. You intend to leave the room? You would not get far.”

‘ _Perhaaaaaaps I could fleeeeee through the windoooooow. Aaaaafter I end youuuuuu, Healeeeeer.’_

“You are more than welcome to do so, if you truly would wish an entire city out to end you. You would not get far, no matter how strong you believe yourself to be. As I said, you chose the most… inopportune of all possible vessels around.”

It was getting unsettling. Noctis showed no change other than the ooze that was a sign of a person slowly turning into a Daemon, but all that precious time that passed since Ignis noticed something off and this moment should have entailed at least some change – and if it were just fangs. But all that was different were the eyes, the first sign of a person being afflicted by the Starscourge, but there was a strange glow that Ardyn had only seen once before in the kid’s unnaturally yellow eyes. The glow of that Daemon that almost killed him when the fight against Ifrit had peaked, the Daemon that Izunia had… shoved out of the way before Ardyn could deliver a killing blow.

He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly.

“As I said, you are most welcome to try getting out of here.” He opened his eyes again and smiled at the child-turned-Daemon; a smile that would have made any normal person freeze. Indeed, Noctis looked unsettled for a moment but his expression turned back to the grimace of a Daemon in the making within a heartbeat. “You will have to quite literally go through me first, though.”

It might have been years since he fought a real fight, but this would hardly be a true fight. He had the upper hand no matter what – Noctis was positively tiny and scrawny for a child his age, and Ardyn could still warp if worst came to worst.

* * *

“ _Have you gone mad, Izunia!?”_

“ _I...”_

“ _This thing almost tore me to shreds!”_

“ _I… I know.”_

“ _Why, then? You saved it! It ran off because of you!”_

“… _Ardyn. That… that Daemon, it… it was here because… b-because of… me.”_

* * *

It was a cackle that snapped him back into reality. A cackle followed by a blow, which was deflected by something else entirely – Ardyn would have gotten punched by that Daemon if it hadn’t been blown off in the last possible moment. A gust strong enough to move a child meant only one thing, however.

“Kar.”

‘ _Truly, you choose the worst times to think about that Seer fool of ages past. Hello, earth to His Highness?’_

“Earth needn’t call for me; Titan takes care of earthy matters.”

‘ _Says the man incapable of subduing a child to heal it. If he even can any longer, one would think people would grow senile after hundreds of years.’_

Ardyn narrowed his eyes and gave a simple, but very clear command; Kar vanished in a burst of sparks. He didn’t need that bratty creature to nag him as he handled Noctis, let alone interrupt him when he healed. If nothing else, Izunia always knew when to keep his mouth shut, unlike Kar and Izunia’s sister before him. Defending a madly cackling Daemon that had nearly killed Ardyn or no, Izunia was the perfect mixture of pushy and caring, and nearly always took care of things whenever Ardyn needed the peace and quiet to heal.

The King inhaled deeply before turning his attention back to the boy.

“Well then, pardon the interruption.”

It was hardly a fight. A simple warp took care of everything, and using his weight to pin down a child might have been pathetic in any other case, but Noctis was shrieking and clawing at Ardyn’s legs within a moment. He was tearing through the fabric and skin rather fast, but Ardyn didn’t budge.

A Healer didn’t need to call for the Gods’ favour to heal unlike the Oracles. In fact, Oracles being able to heal was a fairly recent development, and even then it put an unexpected strain on the women. Yet he found himself taking a deep breath and calling out to the Six to help him with this. Noctis definitely did not deserve being turned into a mindless creature thrashing about that needed to be put down.

When he held out his free hand, it was shaking.

Healing was not painful, not at all. It always felt soft and warm, like a nice summer rain. At least until he had returned from Tenebrae. Now it felt like a thousand needles pricking his hand, and Ardyn, through all the shaking and the closed eyes, felt how his hand was growing numb. Noctis was just making groaning sounds that distorted further and further, until they were but a high-pitched moan that faded as his voice grew hoarse. Ardyn’s arm was entirely cold by this point, most likely looking as if it were about to vanish into flecks of dust. Only once Noctis fell silent he dropped the arm and stood up slowly, eyes still closed.

The fact there was no scrambling and no hissing was a good sign, he supposed, and opened his eyes slowly. There was blood staining his legs, and the child’s fingers and fingernails were also dipped in red. But otherwise he looked just fine, eyes closed and breathing slowly. The Six had heard their deeply corrupted Healer and granted him his silent plea of the corruption not spreading. On the other hand, that meant there was another Daemon stuck somewhere in the back of his head to mock him, and as if he had ordered it to appear a hammering pain spread through his head. He stumbled backwards a little, hands on his head and clenching his teeth.

* * *

“ _Aressa. You do know we can’t exactly leave this place.”_

“ _I know, father. It’s just… your stories make the outside sound like so much fun. It seems like such a shame we never get to see the outside, and you… just look at yourself. Shouldn’t you at least try to see that King of Lucis you were friends with before you got dispelled and settled here with mother?”_

“… _You would have a point, daughter, if… well. That’s the trade-off I struck with Shiva, years ago. It’s just finally manifesting, I suppose. Which would also explain why you already have the power of foresight – I don’t think Seers are supposed to see before they reach their 15th year.”_

“… _Father. Father, you’re turning into a Daemon.”_

“ _I know.”_

“ _The only person who could save you is Ardyn Lucis Caelum.”_

“ _I know.”_

“ _Then why…?”_

“ _I nearly got him killed, Seer Aressa Verus. And you as Seer, much like your fool of a father before you, will have to make sure I completely turn beyond the Wall – or put an end to me before anything worse happens.”_

* * *

He snapped back into reality thanks to a cold hand smacking against his cheek. Considering it had been Cor, Ardyn had to admit he was surprised that the Messenger hadn’t used enough force to dislocate his jaw, but he would not look a gift horse in the mouth for once. He opened his eyes slowly and it was indeed the Messenger, wearing the scowl he always wore when he was visible to everyone. Alas, once Ardyn’s sigh focused he saw why Cor had not used full force – he was also holding the unconscious Noctis.

“W-Well…?”

The Messenger shrugged. “You succeeded. As much as you could in this case.”

“So, when will you fill me in?”

“In but a moment. I called for a maid to take care of young Verus here – I took the liberty of patching you up as to not cause even more of an uproar.”

As if he had ordered it, there was a knock on the door and the Marshal Messenger opened the door, shoved the boy into the confused woman’s arms, and ordered her gone. Once the door fell shut again a cold silence spread between and Marshal.

These 24 Messengers were always cryptic as if they were heralding Ifrit’s return. In fact four of them would, but they lay buried together with their master. The other 18 were spread throughout Eos, with two of them set to the Lucis Caelum and the Nox Fleuret. At least that was what people believed, if they even knew that Cor and Gentiana were not quite as human as they pretended to be. The only difference between Gentiana and Cor was that Cor truly was a Messenger. Thus he was rather unwilling to share information he had been given by Bahamut.

Ardyn, sitting on the floor leaning against a wall, crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

“Well, I’m listening, Messenger. Why was this as much as I could succeed?”

A defeated sigh. This was most likely something that Cor had never wanted to share.

“You cannot purge the Starscourge out of Seers, plain and simple. You managed to save Noctis from turning. No other Verus Seer has gotten this treatment, so there might be changes to Noctis, but in general… The fate of a Seer is to turn into a Daemon.”

Ardyn stared.

“The second was an irregular much like Noctis here. She was given the ability to foresee early in her life because her father would not make it past her 15th birthday. It is the duty of the next generation to make sure the prior one is outside of the Wall when they turn, inevitably. So Aressa Verus saved the Wall by removing her father from the inside, and Shiu Verus saved the Wall by removing his mother, and so on. Until we reach Regis Verus removing Mors Verus, and another irregular being born. Irregulars see early – they also always turn early. But irregulars have a duty ‘ere they turn. Aressa’s was to make certain the perimeter was safe and would be kept safe forevermore. The 17th, the next irregular, was called Sohm and made sure everyone in the settlement that would be known as Frontier at some point knew what the Seers truly were.”

“Hold on. I have had people stationed at Frontier since the time Shiu Verus died and left his son as the next Seer. How come none of the waters noticed anything queer like that going on? Surely the people would have noticed something like children pushing their turning parents out of the Wall. Unless… _Cor_.”

The Messenger sighed once more. “Yes. That is the reason Bahamut sent me. I made sure no one noticed anything.”

“Six thousand years. You had more than one chance to tell me. _Why did you not tell me this crucial information before?_ ”

Cor stared out of the window. “What would you have done? During the first 20 generations, you were angry enough to have pursued them when all they did was make sure the Wall was in one piece, despite the unfortunate fate that befalls all of them sooner or later. After that point you were slightly less angry, but angry enough to throw them beyond the Wall – a place they would have gone to anyway after they turned. Be honest with yourself, Your Highness. You would have banished them from the country entirely, not just from that removed little Duscaen patch they lived in.”

Frontier, a village so far removed that barely anyone ever went there. It was also the home of the Verus family, and Ardyn hated to admit that Cor was correct; he would have banished them from Lucis entirely. And that might have placed a lot of danger onto other countries. At least that way the turned members of the family would slink around somewhere along the Wall, waiting for a way to break in. Most likely through Frontier itself.

He sunk together like a deflated balloon.

“And that is the reason I did not tell you. Most of them, except for the 113th and the 114th, have turned into Daemons somewhere behind the Wall. There are exceptions who had to be put down, indeed, but a large bulk of the family became the creatures you expunged from your homeland until now.”

Izunia would be somewhere behind there as well, unless Aressa had to take care of one of these exceptions, and Ardyn felt his body freeze up.

“… But why?”

“Beg pardon, Your Highness?”

“Why are they turning into Daemons? Unless they each catch the Starscourge they should not be turning. It cannot be transferred to children, the Starscourge takes each and everyone individually. Some faster than others. So… why?”

“Why did you stop turning halfway through?”

It was as if someone had slammed a door shut. Ardyn was fully aware that he was staring at Cor kind of dumbly, but he couldn’t help it nor could he change his expression.

“You two shared the burden. He had not the power of a crystal to subdue him, and his entire bloodline carries this curse on top of another.”

* * *

Three days later, both Clarus and Noctis turned up again. A lot of fear that had built up in him fell off immediately when he saw Noctis slink in after Clarus. He watched almost fondly as Ignis let out a cry of relief and ran over to hold Noctis in a death grip that could pass as hug.

“Are the two of you feeling better?”

“Yes, Your Highness. I do apologise, but I must have caught it from Iris.”

Noctis nodded from the hug he was returning.

Ardyn was aware of Cor standing in the back of the room, and how the Messenger watched as Noctis started laughing in Ignis’ embrace. The other boy had started crying in relief at this point, and even though the Seer was laughing there were tears forming in his eyes. The Messenger, on the other hand, was as silent as ever, and Ardyn shooed everyone out of the room.

It is strange.

He decided not to grace the Messenger with an answer and instead slumped down on a chair and looked over the reports about other minor breaches in the Wall.

You managed to change something about the child.

Still no reaction, but Ardyn’s interest was on that notice in front of him.

Maybe you granted him control over his turning.

“Offshore Galdin Quay, Wall perimeter #5,928.0. Minor breach, several sea-bound Daemons washed in. Local hunters are taking care of the situation on hand.”

Sea-bound Daemons were what tormented Accordo first and foremost. There was no way for these creatures to quickly move across Lucis with the territory they were not used to. They were too large, too dependent on bodies of water to grant them momentum. Why, on all of Eos, were they trying to invade Lucis, then? Daemons were not entirely mindless, they had to know the severe disadvantage they would have even at night in Lucis. The Wall, as long as it stood, bathed the entire country in a soft blue light that made seeing in the dark fully possible.

Something had to be controlling these things.

* * *

In the same week, the news of a person afflicted with the Starscourge reached the Citadel.


	7. Chapter 7

“No. Try it again.”

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to teach children how to wield weapons when they had no reason to, but the last two years had Ardyn on edge. At the very least nothing like Noctis happened in the Citadel again, and neither he nor Cor ever addressed it, Ignis seemed to have gleefully forgotten about it, and Noctis definitely was not aware anything had ever happened. But now that the Wall was receding further and further every day there was nothing to do but to teach the children how to defend themselves in the off event they got into a fight.

The room they used for training was one of the unused ones, spacious enough to touch several subjects. First and foremost was the art of summoning a weapon, mostly because Ardyn was not going to allow these literal kids to carry weapons around openly. He was not that desperate yet, and they were kind of undergoing the training of a Kingsglaive or Crownsguard. Therefore it stood to reason to train them alongside a new recruit.

He was simply sitting on the sidelines together with Clarus and Clarus’ daughter Iris. The girl looked positively offended and was pouting, having been told off by her brother a few minutes ago. Indeed, Gladiolus was rather good for a 15-year-old teenager who had just hit his first growth spurt, but he simply didn’t compare to Nyx Ulric in both height and power. The only thing Gladiolus wore better than the Galahdian Kingsglaive-to-be was his frown – Nyx was merely grinning.

It were only wooden weapons all four of them – Nyx, Gladiolus, Ignis and Noctis – used, but Ardyn had visibly cringed when Noctis had grabbed a wooden pike of some sort. He did look like a bad miniature copy of Izunia like that, with the contours smudged and the colours off, but still like Izunia.

* * *

“ _Well, lucky you! You’re the only person here who uses non-ranged weapons, Verus. That means you’ll be the one taking most attacks head on, because neither I nor Ardyn will be able to defend ourselves if things get too close to us!”_

_That was a lie, but Ardyn decided to humour it a little. He could call on more than one weapon, and a crossbow was most definitely useful in close-range-combat, but the long-suffering look on Izunia’s face as his sister snickered was amusing. Indeed, the Seer was the only one who could immediately react in close range. Though, he had to admit, she was being unusually cruel to her brother, especially after all the trouble he had gone through to save her life before._

_It was a few nights later that Ardyn got to speak to Menda Izunia for the first time all on her own._

_Izunia had fallen asleep early, neatly rolled together next to the campfire. She had simply commented on him looking like a stupid dog like this and tossed a blanket over him._

“ _You are… certainly unfriendly to him.”_

“ _Beg your pardon?”_

“ _He’s spent basically all day looking after your injuries, even tossed himself between a Garulessa and you. He could have died.”_

_She shrugged. “He didn’t, though. He’s unusually persistent for a first-born Izunia.”_

_Ardyn was rather confused at this point, and it must have shown. Menda sighed dramatically and sat down on the ground._

“ _Behold, ye of Izunia, for thine blood is cursed. Thine first shall be blessed with sight unheard, but they shall fall swift as the seasons ever change.”_

“ _...”_

“ _Back in old Solheim days, our family somehow ticked off the gods. So, overdramatic as they are, they cursed us. If I remember mother’s words correctly, her older brother died when she was seventeen – he got mauled by a Daemon, had his arm torn off and was bleeding to death when someone found him. Those hunters put him out of his misery. Hence Izunia being over twenty, nearly thirty, is apparently amazing. Not that mother cared about that – she hated him.”_

_She wove her hands around kind of dismissively, and Ardyn started scowling._

“ _He--”_

“ _Is a bumbling idiot and will not live long enough to be of influence. All first-born Izunias have been this way, and every single one of them perished, some in more of a blast of fire than others, but definitely perished like cattle in for the slaughter.. It certainly would be like Verus to die to something like a Garulessa, or attempting to swim when he had been terrified of water since he was a child. I sure am not going to stop him from doing whatever he pleases, and I am only telling you this so you do not get horribly attached and then start bawling once he inevitably gets himself torn in half. You’re a healer – he’s just a Seer.”_

_She then shrugged, grabbed another bite of her half-finished dinner, and Ardyn decided that he did not like Menda Izunia that much._

_That opinion never changed much until the day she died in the way she claimed her brother would die – torn in half._

* * *

He called on that weapon for the first time in literal millennia.

It came to him much as any other weapon did, with a flash of red. The weapon itself was finely crafted, thin and elaborate. It had always been more for show than for actual use, and Ardyn stared at it as he sat on the roof.

He had been strictly forbidden from climbing any roofs of the Citadel, but there was barely anyone who would care about some weirdly-dressed guy with nearly every bone in his body broken in case he fell – normally Cor would arrive just in time to drag his body out of a ditch anyway, and no one would learn their King could die and take some while to come back to life.

Ardyn sighed and tossed the weapon from one hand into the other before dismissing it again. There was no point in mulling over things now, or ever. It was over now, and the dead would certainly not rise from their graves, nor would any Daemons walk up to him and chat him up for old times’ sake. The owner of this weapon was long dead by any means, and even if he somehow still lived there was no way Izunia would have retained human intelligence on a high enough level to order Daemons around.

Indeed, the Daemons were getting more organised for some reason or another, and Ardyn had nearly exhausted all possible explanations. Reports from Tenebrae and Accordo only supported his theory of something or someone controlling them, but neither Lucis nor Tenebrae or Accordo had any clue as to who was doing it, how they were doing it, and why they were doing it.

Ardyn had, first, suspected it some kind of elaborate payback from Izunia. After all, he had claimed the Daemon that had almost killed Ardyn had been here because of him. But, as much as he hated to admit it, he had to agree with Menda in hindsight – her brother was not clever enough for a tactical attack on Lucis, especially not after being turned into a Daemon in case he was still alive.

He groaned on top of the roof and buried his face in his hands. The last thing he needed now was getting emotional over a man he banished as traitor and alleged regicide hundreds and hundreds of years ago. A moment later he held out his hand once more and summoned the weapon once more.

He had seen this very weapon stained in both blood and black ooze, often the blood had been its owner’s as well. Izunia always fought with near reckless abandon, with a sort of vigour that only came from people who did not fear death. Especially after Menda died Izunia had fought as if he had a death wish, until the point where Ardyn’s collapsing bouts had stopped. The King was near ready to toss the spear off the roof by now, even if the danger of impaling some poor random Crown Citizen was there. He stopped mid-throw and started shaking; the spear simply clattered on top of the roof and rolled down, until he dismissed it once it rolled over the edge.

Ardyn had enough of this, and warped back through the window he had come through.

The Citadel was eerily quiet at this time of the day, and the only thing that illuminated the empty hallways was the glow of the Wall. Even that seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer despite the source of its power being right there, right above their heads. That cursed crystal the five had shoved onto him before he had set out, which he had left at his home in what would become the Crown City of Insomnia, the broken remains of an ancient Solheim settlement that Ardyn would call his home for the next millennia.

He nearly jumped out of his own skin when he heard a small cough somewhere behind him. Once he turned around he saw it was just Noctis staring at him with his glowing eyes.

“What are you doing out of bed at this time?” It was a stupid question, but Ardyn could not think of anything else with his racing heart. Of course the boy would have been nearly asleep and then beset by a vision – it was obvious.

Indeed, Noctis shrugged instead of giving him an answer.

“Right. Shouldn’t you be going back to bed, then? As far as I remember, Ulric made you work pretty hard.”

“Nyx’s nice enough… He stopped once you were gone to let us recover… I mean, he can be kind of a jerk during training but he has a younger sister back home and knows when to stop with us. Except for Gladio. Gladio doesn’t stop, so Nyx doesn’t stop with him, either.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Ulric to train with them, but the young man had been the only one to volunteer, and his love for the kids and their progress truly showed. Maybe he would be a Kingsglaive Drautos would not try to suspend at some point. And even if Drautos did not change his mind, Ardyn decided, he would keep Nyx Ulric as some sort of personal protector of Noctis. Yes, that would work just perfectly.

“Please don’t fire him.”

“… What makes you think I was going to, Noctis?”

“You look angry.”

The King blinked. The Seer, on the other hand, shifted a little.

Of course his bad mood was not going to pass this child, it had seemed kind of silly that he had hoped it would in the first place. Thus, Ardyn sighed a little and ruffled Noctis’ hair.

“I am, but not at Nyx Ulric. It’s no one in particular.”

“Mhm. I know my father always told me the Wall would keep us safe, and that it was our job to make sure nothing bad happened to it.” Ardyn held his breath, silently begging Noctis not to continue the way he thought the boy would. “I can’t believe how hard that’s gotta be on you. Especially with all these weird breaches, as if something’s chewing away at the Wall from the inside… So I guess I understand why you’re angry. I was just worried you’d fire Nyx because of that – I really like him, actually. He’s not as weird as Mr Amicitia has been when he trained me, Ignis and Gladio, yet he still manages to even tire Gladio out!”

By now the strange glow was gone from Noctis’ eyes, and they simply shone in the unearthly glow of the Wall.

“I just wish I could help you, somehow. You took me in when my father collapsed, I have to pay you back somehow, don’t I?”

It was as if Izunia was speaking again – he had reasoned similarly when Ardyn had been about to set out and Izunia insisted on coming along. He had a debt to repay to the Healer, and he would have to pay it back somehow and there way no way of doing it if the Healer simply marched off. Ardyn froze up for a second before shaking his head slowly.

“There’s nothing you have to do to pay me back.”

“But you also taught me how to control everything! I thought only my father could, and that I would be doomed to see and accidentally change things for all eternity!”

“Come now, you weren’t that fatalistic a child.”

“Nuh-uh, you’ve never had visions – they’re terrifying! Back when you took me in I was hardly able to deal with it, I’m sure I would have gone insane if it hadn’t been for you, Ignis and Kar!”

It was as if something clicked. When Seers got overwhelmed, they would turn. Noctis had certainly be coddled, and had started turning when he had actually gotten sick. He remembered a notice about Noctis’ grandfather being unusually stressed before his untimely passing – as Ardyn knew now, it was information that Cor had meddled with, so the details of Mors’ passing had been missing, but he had been stressed.

“… I see. Well, you still have nothing to pay me back for, Noctis.”

“Still! I wanna do the best I can to help you!”

This exclamation was both adorable and heart-wrenching at the same time. It was as if the past had come back through blurred lines between generations of Seers, and it was violently slapping him not unlike Cor whenever the King had died or exhausted himself to the point of collapsing. Ardyn was staring at Noctis silently at this point, while the boy was beaming up at him. At least until he yawned. Loudly.

“Well. Be a good boy now and hurry off to bed again, will you.”

That was enough to make the boy go back to his room, thankfully enough. The King, on the other hand, crossed his arms slowly. He was fully aware that it had not only been Noctis slinking out of the room, and it irritated him to no end.

“You can stop lurking around that corner there.”

‘ _Sheesh.’_

Of course his wayward summon would be up and going – technically Kar didn’t need sleep at all. Neither did Ardyn, for that matter, but the King quite liked putting on a mask of still having somewhat human habits left at this point in time.

He swore if that infernal blue ball could smile like a human it would look like Menda whenever Izunia was asleep – the same infernal grin, that ceaselessly seemed to mock him. Maybe that was why Ardyn had never gotten quite used to this thing’s constant companionship. He had assumed once the Wall had been erected Kar would have vanished in the same burst of air that had heralded his appearance back in Tenebrae, but nothing of the sort ever happened. Thus he was stuck with immortality of a sort and a likewise nearly immortal creature that did nothing but mock him most of the time.

“It would be rather nice if you stopped being so damn shady. You are not a Daemon.”

‘ _All right, all right. No need to get your scarves in a twist, Your Majesty. No midnight walks.’_

* * *

“ _Fair Lady Gentiana.”_

… _Messenger Cor._

_He hated being caught in inopportune moments. Having his trusty sword shattered on the ground and the stump that used to be its base in one hand, and the Healer of the Starscourge grabbed by one of his idiotically placed scarves as the man’s mouth hung slightly open and his eyes were glazed over and stared into nothing was definitely not one of the best moments to be caught by Shiva in her human form. Indeed, the Astral gestured at the Healer but a moment after her greeting, and Cor sighed. He almost dropped Ardyn, too._

“ _Don’t look at me. He got himself suffocated by a Daemon, which I fought off.”_

_You… should perhaps not hold him like a ragged doll in that case. What if he wakes up?_

“ _No need to worry, he will be out of commission for a while longer, unless you desire him woken up.” Cor then unceremoniously dropped Ardyn to the ground. The man landed with a dull thud and a wheeze, but did not move otherwise. “What gives me the honour of your visit, fair Lady?”_

_She still looked vaguely uncomfortable with Ardyn on the ground like that, but shook her head eventually._

_I bear news of the Oracle’s passing._

“… _My condolences.”_

_Her daughter has been taught much, and I will continue teaching her until she is ready._

“ _I can hardly imagine anyone else to be better at this than you. You definitely taught young Soleil how to take care of things, and Tenebrae has become a better place for it. Still, what a waste… she was so young.”_

_But this is not why I am here. Awaken the would-be King._

“… _Alright, but this is not going to be pretty, fair Lady.”_

_With that he bent over and grabbed Ardyn once more – and punched him in the gut. Ardyn let out another wheeze and his glazed-over eyes suddenly looked slightly more alive. At the very least those nasty marks on his neck were vanishing as he returned to life once more. Cor then slapped the man, possibly hard enough that a normal man’s hand would have broken. He definitely dislocated Ardyn’s jaw with that, but that might have been for the better. This man could be so very much infuriating whenever he spoke, and the last thing Cor needed now would be him mouthing off to Shiva of all possible people. Especially since he knew that last time Ardyn had conversed with Gentiana it had been with the Seer at his side, which would definitely leave the Healer in a huff._

_Ardyn coughed. “I...’m awake. L-Lemme… go.”_

_Cor let go, and watched as the man stumbled a little before finding his balance. It had only been a few years since he had been ordered to this man’s side, but Cor still could not believe this idiot was the man who could create something as grand as the Lucian Wall. Indeed, none of the other Messengers could believe it either, but here he was, together with its creator; and said creator had taken it upon himself to expunge any remaining Daemons from Lucis. It seemed like a surreal recording from Solheim._

“ _Gen… Gentiana.”_

_Greetings, Ardyn Lucis Caelum._

_He offered a weak bow that would have been anything but offensive had the man not been completely out of it and had he known that he was talking to the embodiment of Shiva. Gentiana, on the other hand, smiled a little._

_I have come from Tenebrae, but it is not the only reason I am here._

_Ardyn coughed before straightening up. “So I take sickness has taken Soleil Nox Fleuret.”_

_Indeed. Her daughter Victoria has nearly learned all requirements for ascending to Oracle._

“ _Good to know. Little Victoria was a joy to have around the one time I saw her. She should be what, seventeen now?”_

_Eighteen._

_Ardyn managed to fake a smile – he had only seen her after he had managed to manifest the Wall, about ten years ago. The man had been anything but in a good mood, and the young girl had been rather friendly but also very distant. Normally children were not that cold, even to strangers._

_The Seer--_

_Ardyn’s fake smile crumbled within an instance and turned into a bitter scowl. His entire posture shifted from uncomfortable but somewhat relaxed to tense and upright – Cor was amazed the man could even strand as straight as that – and he stopped breathing for a good thirty seconds before inhaling slowly._

“… _What about him?”_

_Maybe it was just Cor, but Gentiana’s expression changed for a second before she folded her hands._

_The Seer’s daughter is also progressing well. That is all._

“ _Daughter… He has a--”_

_But Gentiana was gone, swift as freshly fallen snow in autumn._

* * *

Perhaps it was time to learn how to fight again. Thus Ardyn did what he figured would be best – he started training, in the dead of night, all alone in the room that Nyx, Noctis, Ignis and Gladiolus occupied during their training sessions.

First and foremost, he was at the very least still familiar with the crossbow. He was still fast enough on his feet for a few jabs with daggers. A fencing sword or anything else that was light like one also worked. Great swords and shields on the other hand were alien and hindered him more than they protected or offered brute force.

The moment he accidentally summoned Izunia’s lance instead of the spear he had intended to use all his energy dispersed.

So he once more found himself sitting somewhere on his own, holding that lance while looking and feeling like someone had trampled all over him. And once more he heard the soft shuffling of feet that was by now familiar to him.

“Noctis.”

“Eep!”

“Come here. Sit down next to me.”

The steps here hesitating, apparently the boy thought he was going to get into trouble this time. But Ardyn had anything but a scolding in mind – in fact he was almost entirely focused on the lance. Once Noctis slowly sat down next to him the King looked over. The Seer was clutching Kar to his chest, and the Carbuncle was staring at the King with its gleaming eyes. Noctis, on the other hand, was staring at the floor, and thus Ardyn returned to look at the lance.

“There is something I would like you to have.”

“…?”

He rolled the lance over in his hands.

“It used to belong to someone who was quite a lot like you, Noctis. Someone I knew. He too had a skill that frightened him until a certain point in his life passed and he managed to live with it. I hope one day you will manage to live with the burden your birthright placed upon your shoulders. I just… want you to know you do not have to carry this burden on your own. Ignis would gladly share it with you, and I am quite certain you have managed to win Nyx Ulric for your cause in these last three months. Perhaps even Gladiolus and Iris Amicitia.”

Ardyn sighed, perhaps a bit too deeply.

“I have been holding onto this lance for quite a while. But it would be better in the hands of someone who is so similar to its previous owner.”

It would definitely put his mind at ease knowing the lance had made it back into Izunia’s hands, somehow – Noctis was his descendant, and Regis would not be waking up any time soon to receive this with an explanation of what it was. But Ardyn certainly did not wish to place the knowledge of what this weapon was and who it had belonged to on Noctis. He doubted the Seer would even understand what any of this meant; Regis had most likely never gotten to telling Noctis the reason of their banishment, from their very distant ancestor to the modern age.

“Are you… are you sure? This weapon sounds… and looks… important, somehow.”

Oh, the kid had no idea how important it was. It was the last material in this world that told the story of Verus Izunia, that he had been a living and breathing being all these years ago. And even though it still stung when he thought about the Seer, there was now an unhealthy dose of words unsaid and melancholia. Of course, there were his descendants and Ardyn was talking to one, but over a hundred generations made sure that nothing but the very bright blue eyes of a Seer lived – Noctis and Izunia looked nearly nothing alike at this point.

The King handed the weapon over to the Seer.

“No, keep it. It is yours.”

It was his birthright, but Ardyn kept that unsaid as well.

* * *

What no one in Lucis knew at this time was the fact that the very reason the Wall was weakening was within the Citadel. Soft steps that stopped in front of the throne to stare up at the crystal that fuelled the Wall, that kept the Daemons out. The very reason why they started to get more and more organised with every passing day, and the reason why the Starscourge was starting to flare up throughout Lucis again.

An impatient click of the tongue.

“This is taking way too long. This is my birthright; he never had the right to take it from me. It took a while, and it will take a while longer, but eventually… I will reclaim what should have been mine.”


	8. Chapter 8

_He had feigned ignorance when he woke up to see a set of concerned villagers staring at the stranger that had collapsed in their fields during the night. The glow of the Wall was eerie at this point in Duscae – it ended here, after all. He could see it shimmering softly in the background of this rainy day._

_They asked him something, but his throat was dry despite the rain. It was very easy to play a fool once he understood what they were saying. Perhaps amnesia was not the best sort of excuse at this point, but Izunia had no choice._

_Stupidly enough he had given them Izunia as his first name. Only Ardyn had ever called him by his last name – even the Oracle, back in Tenebrae, had called him Verus. Thanks to this mistake he would be called by his last name for the rest of his human life in this village._

_At least the woman who took him in was nice enough. She soon turned out to be more intelligent than your average farmer – her wit was sharp and scalding, but she never once used it on him during his early stay. That, and her very expressive face soon drew him in like a moth to the flame; it reminded him of Ardyn, who had been expressive as well. Gloria and Ardyn were nothing alike despite that, and it seemed kind of silly to compare apples and pears. She was different, much different, but outside of the stinging longing to return to Insomnia and tell Ardyn the truth despite his better judgement in his early days in the village, he considered that chapter of his life over and done with. He didn’t know that he apparently begged for forgiveness in his sleep, but Gloria never pestered him about that._

_By the time they heard of the King’s ascension, several years had passed since he had collapsed in the fields, and Izunia hated admitting to himself that he was getting comfortable. He had never aspired to be a well-known person anyway, and travelling with Ardyn had been mostly to repay a debt back then. A debt he considered repaid with Menda’s death. He had tried leaving the Healer, but just half a day with the group of merchants that were making for his old home, he had turned around once and felt his entire body sting with heavy regret. Izunia had essentially ran the way back just to find Ardyn again. Like some sort of lovesick fool – Menda would have chewed him out for it._

_But a first-born outliving a second-born in this family was entirely unheard of. Since the time of Solheim’s downfall it had always been the elder brothers that died, leaving the younger sisters to take care of the family. He had certainly not expected to live longer than his sister, and he had quite a few close brushes with death. Somehow he had not died despite all that, and he mostly attributed that to Ardyn Lucis Caelum. The day the Healer had fished him out of the lake had been a turning point in Izunia’s life, one that turned his lousy luck into actual luck._

_His luck was going to turn around eventually._

“Go. Leave. I don’t care about where, just make certain I never have to see you, or anyone related to you, ever again.”

_And it turned around._

_Izunia Verus, as these people here called him, eventually married Gloria. Everyone deemed it a perfect fit, and even Izunia had to humour it – but he and Gloria both admitted they were just friends. There was no syrupy romance between them, it was just a very deep-rooted friendship. Perhaps there were worse things than marrying your only friend in the world; Gloria certainly joked about it being perfect in a way no one expected it to be. He had to agree, laughing at the table as she looked at the dress she had worn the day before with a look of genuine detestation._

_Losing her was like a punch in the face, but a straggler Daemon had gotten to her, leaving him all alone in the world together with their daughter. She had always wanted children, and Izunia and her were putting on the happily married couple facade, so this was the next, definitely next stop. Aressa might not have been born to a pair of perfectly in love people, but she would definitely have parents that cared for her. At least she would have had them had Izunia and Gloria not been attacked by Daemons on their weekly stroll._

_Since the King started driving them out or destroyed them entirely, they had been getting more and more aggressive. Izunia cursed the entire day, almost drowning out his screeching daughter. The entire village was awkwardly silent for a day. The vision a split moment before Gloria started screaming would haunt him for the rest of his life._

_A few days later there were news of a Messenger and the King being nearby, and Izunia finally managed to curse the Six, and Shiva most of all. At least Aressa had stopped bawling, another mother in the village was helping him with taking care of her. He was considerably more quiet when the curses escaped him. Thus, in a moment of unrelenting panic, he passed the sleeping baby and grabbed a knife off the counter._

_At least his daughter would not question him cutting off his ponytail in one swift motion with a kitchen knife. He was still recovering from wounds, and half his face was covered in bandages that Izunia was more than ready to never take off; his blood had started turning thicker whenever he managed to injure himself to the point of bleeding, and it was much darker. Even if the skin healed back into a normal human’s instead of the hide of a Daemon he would never be able to look at the scarred tissue. In the same moment something nearly knocked him over and he heard a faint sizzle somewhere in the back of his head. He knew these symptoms, he had spent years of his life trying to help people afflicted with it. He shared the burden with Ardyn, though the King did not know – King! - and would never know. Not as long as Izunia had his wits together, and he certainly hoped it would be a gradual decline instead of a rapid one. He wanted to tell Aressa how sorry he was, after all. Not the baby that didn’t understand what he was saying, but the young woman who would understand what he meant. He was just hoping the next day would not end with him getting executed for treason or attempted regicide._

_Thankfully enough the King and the Messenger barely paid any mind to the people of the village. Thankfully the only person telling the King what happened here that required his help to expunge the Daemon had a heavy lisp and stuttered, so the name Gloria Verus came more out as a Gloria Verrat. Thankfully only the Messenger shot the man who was introduced as the “poor sap whose wife was killed in the attack” a look – the King certainly was staring out into the woods where the attack had taken place._

_Ardyn left with the rising sun when the Daemon was slain, and unbeknownst to him, Izunia watched from the border of the village. Part of him wanted to follow the King and the Messenger, as he would have had Insomnia not happened as it had. But there was no way to tell that truth without further invoking Ardyn’s undying rage. And undying it certainly was – Izunia felt that Ardyn had left his humanity behind at this point, mostly due to being perpetually stuck between being a human and being a Daemon, all while being blessed by five of the Six and the crystal. It definitely was like saying goodbye to a dream, but Izunia would rather take that one secret to his grave – or to the inevitable loss of humanity._

_That Daemon that had attacked Ardyn… It had been there to take out King and Seer both, but only bothered with the bigger threat first. That Daemon had retained human intelligence enough to attack the Healer over the Seer, and whoever this creature had been had known about the hierarchy of Healers and Seers. There were not that many people who actually knew this. Many many puzzle pieces fell into place when he had watched that creature zip around and nearly cleave Ardyn in half. Izunia had not completely lost it when he prevented Ardyn from killing the creature, and the way it looked at the Seer with a hungry glint in its eyes before it scuttled off only made the truth become even more apparent:_

He knew that Daemon.

_He passed that knowledge on to Aressa, years later. She could barely believe her ears as her father’s wheezing and warped voice told her the story of why he had been banished. When he finished he was writhing in agony, and Aressa was sobbing near hopelessly._

_It didn’t stop her from doing her duty – she shoved her turning father beyond the wall on the morrow, with just a silent farewell on her lips as she watched him stumble away from the Wall he wanted to protect._

* * *

“Iggy!”

“Noct, I’m doing homework, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“I can tell. But look outside! Come on!”

Before Ignis could further protest, Noctis had already grabbed his arm and started pulling. Sighing in defeat, Ignis stood up and followed to the window. Out there, in front of the Citadel in the vast plaza, stood Cor Leonis and the King, and what appeared to be a trembling child at Cor’s side. He suddenly understood Noctis – it was rare to see people under twenty even go near the Citadel, let alone be taken through the checkpoints to the plaza. And the fact the boy was on Cor Leonis’ side made more questions than answers appear.

Meanwhile, outside, Ardyn crossed his arms slowly.

“Cor. Just one question.”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“Why on Eos are you still tormenting me. You do know what you picked up there, right?”

The Messenger nodded. “I do know what this child is, and that is precisely the reason why I did not let him wander around on his own any longer. If there were even one Niflheim spy, and you can bet on them being around, in Insomnia and they found a dazed and disoriented first-generation MT sniper that had obviously been lost by whatever transport it had been on, you would have found yourself with an exploding unfinished MT before you knew it.”

The child with his definitely enhanced eyes stood next to Cor and trembled slightly at the Messenger’s words.

Ardyn sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, before he turned to look at the boy.

“You there. Tell me your name, code number, whatever they gave you.”

“MT… 01P...” The boy’s voice was trembling just like he himself, and he took a deep breath before continuing. “MT-01-PR0-498M6-PT0. ARG model MT-01-PR0-498M6-PT0.”

Ardyn held back a comment on that being a mouthful, and instead nodded in thanks before turning back to glaring down Cor. At the very least the Messenger never budged whenever they had one of their stare-downs. Indeed, Cor was glaring back, as displeased as he usually was when it meant he had to offer information. They stood there like that for a good minute before both men sighed and Ardyn shrugged.

“Noctis, Ignis, I know you’re standing at the entrance. You will take our guest to the meeting room. And don’t pester him too much.” He turned to look at the trembling MT. “As for you, don’t let them pry any information out of you. If they ask for your name, give them a fake one. Oh, to hell with it. ARG model MT-01-PR0-498M6-PT0, you say? Fine. ARG… PR0… PT0… Prompto Argentum. That is the name you will give them. Nothing on you being an MT. Fake memory loss if you have to, but do not tell them you are not Lucian. You’re Prompto Argentum, and from… Cleigne. Fake amnesia about anything else. That is an order.”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“Off you go, then.” He turned around and raised his voice a little so the two who were waving at the MT would understand him clearly. “I’m serious about the pestering thing.”

Ignis nodded dutifully, and Noctis gave him a thumbs up. Of course they were going to pester that poor MT, but there was nothing Ardyn could do about it right now. He still had information he needed to get out of Cor Leonis, as much as the Messenger might have disliked it.

Once the teens had scampered off, Ardyn put his hands on his hips like a displeased mother. At least his mother had always looked like that when she had been scolding him for his antics, even if her face was nothing but a blurry memory at this point. Cor tried to ignore that expression, but after a few seconds couldn’t help but snort.

What are you trying to be? My malevolent fairy godmother?

“No. That role already belongs to Bahamut.”

Touché.

“Good. Now that we have that sorted out, I have several questions. I know you Messengers are supposed to be cryptic and all that, for some sort of aesthetic that is beyond even me. Why then, why, are you dropping things here in the Citadel like that? Or, as in this case, children?”

I already told you that.

It was like talking to a wall, and Ardyn had to stifle an intense groan. He was certainly getting more and more frustrated with his personal Messenger Marshal.

“Good. Alright. Just perfect. Then, how on earth does a first generation MT wash up in Lucis, let alone in Insomnia? You do know I nearly started a war with Niflheim over the technology behind that being largely based on information they gathered while essentially trespassing on Lucian soil. If it ever comes to light there’s a MT in Insomnia, in the Citadel even, they might just declare full-blown war on us.”

Nothing of the sort will happen. He’s defective.

“Defective.”

It seemed like Cor had won this argument, because Ardyn found himself rolling the word over and over in his head, not entirely understanding the implication of it. Lucis knew way too little about Niflheim’s MTs for this, and the Lucian Immortal King was no exception of that rule. Thus he stood there, staring at the ground, thinking, all while he knew the Messenger was grinning at him in victory.

* * *

MT-01-PR0-498M6-PT0 was staring at these two others with wide, round eyes. He had never really been together with non-MT people who weren’t involved with the military before, and these two were… so unlike anything he had ever imagined. Even though imagination was forbidden amongst MTs. That was why he was considered defective and about to be discarded somewhere far far away from Niflheim.

He’d only ever seen Gralea, mostly at night, which was dark and oppressive and choking. Lucis so far had been nothing but beautiful and colourful compared to this. Insomnia, on the other hand, felt like Gralea again, but this time with life in it instead of gloom.

“Well, then,” the black-haired one leaned forward with a smile bright enough to melt Shiva’s eternal ice, “what’s your name? Where are you from? Why are you here?”

Even when he stuttered out the order he had been given – his name was Prompto, he was from Cleigne, and he had no idea – the boy’s smile didn’t change despite the more than lacklustre answer. The one with the glasses behind him shrugged when their eyes met, a small smile on his lips as well.

“Come on now, Noct, His Highness said we should not pester Prompto too much.”

“Screw what Ardyn said! I wanna know more about him – there’s so few new people here, it gets _boring_ , Iggy!”

Before Ignis could even sigh in faux-defeat and go along with whatever Noctis had planned, the Seer had jumped to his feet.

“Come on, Prompto!”

“Wh-Wh...”

“Time for a trip ‘round the Citadel, whether you like it or not!” Noctis laughed and tossed a glance at Ignis. “You go pick up your homework and Kar, Iggy, we can do it together in a nicer room! Maybe we’ll even get Nyx, Gladio and Iris to come, it’ll be a total blast!”

The three set out and parted ways at the staircase, with Noctis pulling the baffled ‘Prompto’ along, while Ignis hurried downstairs to first collect the essential equipment and then ask the Amicitias and their training supervisor if they wanted to come along. There was a perfect spot that Noctis had discovered last year; a completely unused room where the sun shone into very nicely, and Ignis knew that he would go to that one.

A minute after they vanished, King and Messenger appeared in the hallway, with the King positively pouting at the Messenger. They entered the room Ardyn had ordered Noctis and Ignis to take their guest to, but the room was empty. The seats were moved a little, certainly, but it was positively abandoned otherwise. Ardyn inhaled sharply – there was a Niflheim MT, no matter what defective meant precisely, loose in the Citadel. Together with the current Verus Seer and the last Scientia from the looks of it. Somewhere behind him Cor let out a cross between a huff and a snort.

… Did you really expect they would stay in the same room as you asked them to.

“… Noooooctis! Igniiiiiis!”

* * *

_Were he not bound by protocol, Cor was certain Ardyn would have slapped the taste out of Aldercapt’s mouth at this point. Alas, as much as a human failure Ardyn was in every other department, he certainly knew when to pull the ‘I am immortal, you mean nothing to me’ card and melded it perfectly into his playing hand. Every other Niflheim executive as well as the currently present Lucian envoys looked uncomfortable – the only one who seemed to be enjoying herself was Sylva Nox Fleuret, the upcoming Oracle. She definitely looked like she was having a blast, sitting beside her very uncomfortable-looking mother._

“ _There is but one thing I wish to know. You essentially trespassed on Tenebraen and Lucian soil after centuries of quiet peace between our nations, with near reckless abandon – but why?”_

_The fact that Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt had the gall to grin at Ardyn Lucis Caelum even made Cor uncomfortable at this point. And to make a Messenger feel that uncomfortable, it certainly took quite a lot of stubborn recklessness. Everyone but Ardyn, Aldercapt, Sylva and Gentiana was essentially looking for a way to escape a possible Ground Zero, but there was no way of fleeing the meeting room._

“ _Simple. We merely wanted to take a look at your grandiose Wall.”_

“ _I would not call rolling up with military and scientists a ‘look’. You were doing something, and I want to know what that something was before the already shaky relationship between our countries causes any further issues.”_

_The Niflheim Emperor had guts. “As I said, merely a look. We were not trying to dispel it, we were not trying to otherwise harm it. Just a gander at the marvel that keeps Lucis safe. Besides, we learned nothing of value anyway. So rest assured, Your Majesty, there is naught you have to fear from us in regards to your precious Wall.”_

_There was no way Ardyn was dumb enough to start a war over something he could not prove, so he ordered a tactical retreat._

_A few months later there were reports of Lucian spies within Niflheim that they had started developing some sort of creature that was essentially half Daemon and half machine, but still had a human body as base._

* * *

The sun was setting by the time Ardyn finally heard them laugh. The conversation seemed to be about something relating to Ignis’ homework and punching Nyx Ulric in the shoulder – how on earth had these three even managed to grab the Amicitia children and the man who was merely known as “Seersguard”?

Ardyn had to admit, it was rather clever to go to this part of the Citadel. It was largely abandoned after all, and he had never considered going there. The door to the vast room they were in was open, and he peeked inside.

Wooden weapons were clattered on the floor next to Ignis’ textbooks, a large amount of pens and pencils lay scattered about and several sheets of paper which had been scribbled on by Iris Amicitia had been nearly carelessly tossed around. They were sitting on the floor with the exception of Nyx Ulric, who was lying on his stomach with Iris sitting on back. Gladiolus was leaning against a wall and laughing at something Noctis said, while Ignis gestured towards the window – the missing MT was sitting next to him and following every single gesture with his eyes, nodding eagerly as Ignis went on about the constellations that were known beyond the glimmer of the Wall. Stars were barely visible through it, which Ardyn didn’t mind, but he knew Ignis had always been fascinated by a night sky that was not illuminated by the Wall. Kar was rolled up on some drawing that looked a lot like the interpretation of the crystal as drawn by an eight-year-old child.

Iris, on the other hand, had finally grabbed Nyx’ shirt and pulled, both young man and girl laughing as she sputtered something about him being her valiant steed, and even Ignis interrupted his explanation to look at that show.

“Oh, so I’m the Chocobo? Well, then get this!”

The girl jumped off his back and tried to escape him as he pushed himself to his feet, but there was no way Iris would outrun Nyx. He scooped her up and continued sprinting through the room, all while whistling the song from the advertisements for Wiz’ Chocobo Post out in Duscae. At least until he toppled over the boy they all called Prompto, and Gladiolus dove forwards to catch his sister, shoving Noctis over into Ignis. There was crashing and every single one of these idiots would get bruises for their troubles, but as they lay there in a gigantic pile all they could do was start laughing loudly. Well, maybe Iris was also crying a little while laughing.

You do know this won’t last for much longer.

For once he was grateful that Noctis was too distracted, and Ardyn only let out a slight hiss as he turned around to face Cor.

15 is the age that Seers start having their visions. And for the irregulars…

Cor sighed and folded his hands.

That is when their trials begin.

Ardyn just wanted to leave these youngsters to their own devices now, with Cor having completely spoiled the mood. For a split moment he thought that Kar was staring at him, but when he turned to actually look at the Carbuncle it was still peacefully rolled up on the drawing.

* * *

_The first night all alone at home had been terrifying. She had spent it essentially sobbing her eyes out, rolled up in a corner of the familiar house that now seemed to suffocate her._

_But Aressa Verus was not going to simply sit here and let misery take her. She knew that it had been for the best, and she would have never been able to actually kill her own father as he had begged her, several times, when he retold his story and why he had essentially doomed her, and her children, and every generation yet to come that bore even the slightest drop of their blood in their veins. She never devised a proper plan that she actually managed to finish at this time, but years over years later when she was looking into a mirror to see a yellow glint in her blue eyes, she remembered one thing she had wanted to do._

_So, she sat down after she had informed Shiu of his eventual duty, and started what she had always liked – she started writing a story. But this story was not made-up, as much as she would have liked it it be._

_To the King of Lucis,_

_If this letter reaches your hand, I will be long gone. Maybe years, centuries, or even millennia will have passed by the time you read these lines, which I write in the last weeks of my life as a human being. My name is Aressa Verus, but the story I am about to tell is not about me, nor is it about my son Shiu Verus, nor is it about any other Verus Seers that might have come after me and Shiu._

_This story I am about to tell you, Your Highness, is about…_

* * *

Just within a week Prompto Argentum had become yet another member of the Citadel. It was so very hard to tell Noctis no when he pulled out that expression of his when he really wanted something.

At the very least Ardyn could snarl out “You teach him how to behave and be normal, then, you brought him here,” at Cor Leonis before the Messenger Marshal had the chance to roll the MT onto Ardyn’s back.

Surprisingly enough he didn’t mind that much, but Ardyn would spend several weeks making sure that Cor was not screwing this up somehow or was turning the surprisingly friendly and shy boy into something more akin to what he had been raised for. No, there would be no MT here, just a boy around the same age as Noctis.

Only a year later Ardyn realised that the 15th birthday of Noctis Verus, along with the steadily reclining Wall, were putting more stress on him than he admitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What precisely was Niflheim up to?"  
> MTs are powered by machinery, Daemons, and a magic that's like a cheap, offbrand, bootleg Wall Power™.  
> It'll be explained a bit better next chapter, but yeah. That's a fact.
> 
> im seriously considering writing something like... a dvd commentary because this au is kind of extensively built but not everything is going into it. that, and if no one stops me from impulsively spending all day naming all 114 Verus Seers. and several Oracles.  
> i mean we already have Verus/Izunia, Aressa, Shiu, Mors or whatever hes written i just stuck with that thanks, Regis and Noctis; Soleil, Victoria, Sylva and, well duh, Lunafreya.  
> we dont need this list. yet i have the urge to write it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is basically writing itself and it feels weird after nearly like. 3? years of stagnating creativity to start spewing out chapter after chapter as if its 2011 again and im very well-known in the german pokemon fanfiction department
> 
> anyway.

“How nice of you to actually pay attention to me for once.”

‘ _You smell of blood. Did you go out and got yourself impaled, sliced into ribbons, or whatever you do in your spare time again? Surely that cannot be healthy, the whole constant reviving as undying being aside.’_

He had, in fact, gotten run through. At least not fatally this time, even if it stung like hell. His shoulder would definitely be out of commission for a few days; at some point his self-healing powers that were thankfully not corrupted would set in and help him recover. But Ardyn had, once more, done to take care of a particularly large breach, on his own this time. It was necessary to keep the territories that had not already receded beyond the Wall safe.

Kar sat down, his long tail curling around his front paws perfectly.

‘ _You are aware that this will only get worse the longer whatever issue is weakening your Wall is allowed to fester, yes?’_

“Of course. What do you take me for, an idiot? … Actually, don’t answer that. I know you do think that.”

The Carbuncle merely narrowed its eyes slightly.

‘ _Truth be told, I did not come here for this current conversation.’_

“I know. You’re here to get the same conversation Cor Leonis has tried to have with me every day in the last month, but I will tell you the same as I have told him: I am perfectly aware tomorrow is Noctis’ 15th birthday.”

In fact it was stressing him out so much that he had looked into the mirror this morning and found a thin trail of black ooze rolling out of his mouth. Ardyn was perfectly capable of pretending to be human, but he simply wasn’t any longer at this point. This was a reminder of that, and if he had been expecting anything else at this point he might have yelled and caught Cor’s attention. Thankfully he didn’t.

He’d heard stories of several Seer’s 15th birthdays. Usually there was something to trigger the first vision, more often than not the non-Seer parent dying, often in terrible ways. He knew for certain that several had been trampled to death by wild animals, some just were unlucky enough to catch an extremely deadly disease all of a sudden. There was a bloody line in Lucian history, and now that he got some information about it he could see that line was stained with black spots.

Irregulars, on the other hand, usually had something terrible happen to them.

Nine years were nothing to Ardyn at this point, but he had to admit he had gotten himself terribly, terribly attached to nearly every single person of this generation’s inhabitants of the Citadel. The thought of something like Noctis’ near turning into a Daemon back when the Starscourge came back to Lucis made him even more nervous than he was before.

‘ _Watch it. Your eyes are turning yellow.’_

He blinked, slowly, and the Carbuncle then nodded back.

‘ _Better. And to go back to the topic on hand; I was not going to ask about Noctis. The boy is collected enough to handle whatever comes on the morrow, and he has enough people around him to help him where his father cannot. What I was going to ask about were the obviously stolen Magitek reports scattered in a drawer in your room. It has been a year, don’t you think that if that boy Prompto had already been infused with the essence of the Starscourge, he would have started turning already?’_

Ardyn paused before running a hand through his hair. Kar had a point.

“Aye.”

‘ _There is something your Messenger is hiding from you, and before the dusk breaks you would do well to squeeze the answers out of him, being sent by Bahamut be damned.’_

* * *

Later that day he found himself pinned to a wall instead of being greeted like a normal person would.

“Care to elaborate, or is that another one of these hilariously strange Messenger things you do, Cor?”

Normally it was Ardyn who was at a loss for words whenever something strange happened, but this time it was Cor who flushed and let go and looked around the room as if looking for a way to escape. He managed to catch himself mere moments later, going back to looking stoic, but Ardyn just shot him a grin. After all these years he thought he deserved being the one to grin for once.

“Strange Messenger things, then. Good for you, I was looking for you.”

You listened to the furball.

“Unlike you, he has always said the truth. Well then, Cor Leonis. What precisely was your goal with bringing Prompto here?”

A deep sigh, deeper than the average sigh that escaped Cor whenever he had to share something he did not want to share. Indeed, the Messenger shifted a little and stared out the window. What surprised Ardyn even more was that he continued speaking with the normal spoken language instead of the one of gods and Messengers.

“Did you know Niflheim gets rid of so-called failed projects not far from where Frontier touched the Wall? Most of these kids horrifically turn into Daemons, screeching and pleading for whatever Astral to help them. They’re bred – bred, Your Highness, like cattle – just for the purpose of being turned into mindless creatures that are part human, part Daemon, but mostly machines. That is how Niflheim keeps the Daemons at bay despite not having a Wall, despite not having an Oracle’s blessing. They use their knowledge of ancient Sol technologies and they use it… well, by mortal means, rather well. For a Messenger chosen from that time, however, I cannot clearly put that horror into words, Healer. It is that exact procedure that caused the rift between the Astrals to begin with. Idle curiosity that caused the Six to fall apart. The thirst for knowledge is something that cannot be stopped within mortals, that we learned from Solheim. I but… wished to know if there were ways to help these that are not infused yet.”

Cor took a deep breath.

“It is true, I yanked that child through the Wall for I am a Messenger and do not care about your rules for it. I half expected him to be vaporised because he had been that far into production, but nothing of the sort happened. He just stared at me with these wide, blue-silver eyes. It was almost the same as when Regis Verus appeared here, and Noctis stared at you with his glowing eyes.”

“… So you’re saying you felt pity. Along with whatever it was that happened in the past, that made you take that MT and take it here.”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other for a long while. The Marshal _never_ shared information, so this was surprising Ardyn more than what he had actually said. Even way back, and even though Cor had his reasons and his assumptions had been correct, he had not shared that the village that would be known as Frontier one day was the village that Izunia had gone to until Shiu Verus’ son took over the household after the mysterious death of his father. Izunia’s great-grandson was the point in time where Ardyn learned that so much time had passed that there would barely be any reason to believe Izunia had even tried to remember him after the banishment. Which was fair and deserved, Ardyn mused a few generations later when the irregular Ipsu, the 17th, was born. It wasn’t until the 84th that Cor admitted he had seen Izunia in that village, that it had been the woman he lived with that had been murdered, that it was his daughter that was now half orphaned.

Ardyn had been livid that day. Mostly with Cor, but also with the fact that all of this had happened as it had.

“ _Ardyn, please! Listen, I… No, I didn’t sic it on you! What do you take me for!? I would never-- Ardyn!”_

The King exhaled slowly.

“Your unusual chattiness aside… is that all?”

Cor, who was still looking out of the window, tensed up for a second. Then his shoulders drooped. “He reminds me of my nephew.”

“Your nephew.”

“No, worry not, Your Highness. My family was erased before Solheim even fell. But as you know, Messengers were human beings before their often untimely ascensions. Prompto reminds me of my nephew; who incidentally is the reason I became a Messenger in the first place. I tried to defend him against one of Ifrit’s, and Bahamut took pity on the fool who challenged a woman oozing black grime and breathing flames for the life of a boy who was doomed anyway.”

History that had been lost, and Cor knew all of it. How fitting, Ardyn thought, of course the one who barely talks about the important matters would know something like that. He put a hand on the Messenger’s shoulder.

“I am not going to throw him out, I wasn’t even considering that when you brought him here. It certainly helped that Noctis took such a liking to him.”

Cor tensed up once more. “Be wary, though. Tomorrow might change that.”

“I know.”

* * *

_A long gash. Blood splattered all over his clothes. It was a miracle he was still standing, but Izunia knew perfectly well why that was the case. They had watched the Daemon leave a bloody trail as it disappeared off the island, and that malicious cackle rang in his ears._

_At least until Ardyn grabbed him despite his grievous injuries, and slammed him back first against a ruin. Ardyn, injured as he was, was most likely driven by fury and adrenaline, and Izunia could barely say what he had done until breathing became way too hard. Ardyn was choking him in his blind rage, and the Seer pretty much accepted that he was going to die here. There were spots in his vision and his entire body was twitching feebly against the iron grip--_

_Then Ardyn released him._

_He crumpled to the ground gasping for air. He let himself drop entirely and rolled around to look at Ardyn. There was blood running down the man’s face, and out of the corner of his mouth rolled a thin, but completely black, liquid._

_There were no reports of Healers corrupting as they healed. Something had happened in the past that had severed Ardyn’s link to his power and the Six’ cleansing powers when it came to healing the Starscourge. When the remnants of the fighting force that had come here to take care of the Daemons infesting this ancient Solheim ruin on an island, they were shouting in surprise. Ardyn was whisked away to be treated, and one of them inspected Izunia._

“ _Are you quite alright, Seer Verus?”_

_Only a thin breath escaped him, his eyes were still fixed on the disappearing Ardyn. Then he breathed in sharply and pulled himself up on his feet, only to stagger after the man who had nearly choked him to death. Izunia knew he deserved that._

“ _Ardyn, please!”_

_The Healer froze._

“ _Listen, I...”_

“ _You should have been more thorough. Sadly your little pet didn’t finish its work.”_

“ _No, I didn’t sic it on you!”_

_Finally the Healer turned around. He had apparently wiped off the black liquid before the other people could look at his face closer. In his eyed burned untold fury, and Izunia winced._

“ _What do you take me for!?” He hadn’t meant to cry out like that, but he still did, his entire body trembling. Ardyn’s expression didn’t change at all._

“ _A would-be murderer.”_

“ _I would never--”_

_But the Healer staggered. Someone immediately grabbed him and prevented him from slamming onto the ground as Izunia had earlier, and the Seer thought he was being held in a choke hold again._

“ _Ardyn!”_

* * *

He was in Frontier again. Which meant this was not reality, by any means. Had he been younger he would have tried waking his father up again and go home, but Noctis knew by now there was nothing left of the first home he ever had. He considered the Citadel and all of its inhabitants his home and family now, but there was something comforting about seeing Frontier as he remembered it. Small, quiet, but familiar.

In fact everything was so familiar it threw him off. He remembered the fire and had actively tried to forget it (of course, dreams and nightmares did not work the same as his memory when he was awake), he remembered the terrible tearing sound as the Daemon attacked his father who was blocking the open car door with his body until the Daemon finally lost interest and scuttled off. Now that he thought about it, that whole situation had been bizarre. Why would a Daemon suddenly let go of an easy target like his father?

“Quite simple.”

Noctis nearly let out a scream when he heard an unfamiliar voice behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder. He whipped around, ready to blast the stranger in the face with a spell, but his magic didn’t answer him.

“Noctis Verus?”

“Y-Yes?”

“The reason it stopped its attack on your father is that it was ordered to do so.”

The stranger was standing perfectly still, nothing more than a tired smile on his face. He seemed to be slightly taller than Noctis, the whole ‘half obscured by darkness’ thing he had going on aside. Indeed, what Noctis could see of him was, once again, familiar, despite the fact he had never seen that man in his life.

“Who… are you?”

“Mhm. I would say something like ‘a man of no consequence’ here if that even remotely were the case. Alas, I am nothing of the sort, for my actions had more consequences than I could have ever imagined. Come, take a walk with me and I will explain everything your father could not.”

Maybe it was a bad idea to trust a stranger in his dreams, but Noctis decided to follow him. He seemed to be limping somewhat, and his breathing was kind of ragged.

“Frontier as you remember it, I reckon? It certainly hasn’t changed since your father turned 15. Although, maybe this is your father’s incarnation, given that you don’t live there any longer. Normally Frontier changes with every generation, and if it is just another tree missing.”

The stranger’s voice was melodic despite the ragged breathing, and Noctis relaxed. If this were a nightmare then things would be going quite differently. They strolled through Frontier for a few minutes, with the stranger merely humming a song, until he finally stopped at the Wall.

“It is quite a sight to behold, isn’t it?”

“Too bad it’s failing.”

“Truly a waste; it kept generations safe and now its marvel is giving way to darkness once more.” It was the tone in the stranger’s voice that tripped Noctis up a little – he sounded like someone who knew too much, and most likely was exactly such a person.

“… You know something about that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” The stranger turned around and finally Noctis could see his face – he nearly screamed and took a few hurried steps backwards. That was not a person – that was a Daemon. Or at least three quarters a Daemon, the only vaguely human thing remaining being half his face and the shape. Everything else was Daemonic in nature; from the scales to what appeared to be a scythe where his left arm had been. The stranger, on the other hand, merely laughed.

“No need to be afraid. I have merely forgotten what I look like – several millennia can do that to you when you’re but a Daemon otherwise. I would not appear like this before you if I remembered more than what I look like right now. Sadly curse-fuelled dreams are the only times I can speak to the Seers that came after me, and most of them already know the fate that awaits them when I can speak to them.”

“… The fate that… awaits me?”

The stranger sighed and gestured at the Wall. Its constant shimmer flickered a little when he did so, and Noctis took another step backwards.

“Every Seer, from the very beginnings to the very endings, will be doomed to turn into a Daemon. The children push the parents out beyond the Wall, and that’s the end of the story. If fate hadn’t deemed you an Irregular like those few before you, that would have been the case. That would have been what your father would have raised you to do, and you would have raised your child to eventually do the same. That is the curse I put on this family.”

Noctis held his breath.

“You are...”

“The man people called Izunia Verus. Funny thing, for I was born as Verus Izunia instead.”

“… The Seer that was together with Ardyn.” The man didn’t look much like a human any longer, but Noctis swore he grimaced there underneath the several layers of horrible Daemonic misfigurations. “The one that got all of us banished from the King’s immediate sight.”

“Aye. Exactly that one. I am not here to tell you that story, however – it was already bad enough to tell it to those who asked about it, and to my daughter. Noctis, you are an Irregular. That means something this generation is off, and you will be needed to fix it. As you can most likely guess – the Wall. Something within the Citadel doesn’t quite belong there. Find it. Eliminate it. That is the trial placed on your shoulders.”

Noctis shook his head furiously, more confused than anything else. This man had just claimed to be his distant ancestor.

Izunia, on the other hand, laughed softly once more. His voice was getting quieter and quieter. “There is no avoiding fate, I am afraid. I tried changing fate – that is the reason we can change fate in the first place. I begged Shiva for the ability to change fate, in a panic, after losing my only living family. There was a person who would have turned into a monster otherwise, and he would have been denounced as nothing but that monster by all of history, for all eternity. So I pleaded her for a trade, or at least to shoulder part of the burden with him; and thus we do. We turn into Daemons, he did not. … Oh. Goodness, I almost forgot.”

The voice was barely a whisper at this point, and Noctis smelled the fires that consumed Frontier behind him.

“You can ease Ardyn’s mind.”

“Wait, what?”

“You would have turned into half a Daemon, still in full possession of your wits, had he not intervened when it started manifesting early as it is the case with Irregulars. Do not look at me so, I never thought the burden would hit even my children and their children’s children and so on. Ardyn averted that fate when he healed you when you were younger.”

Noctis stared as the Wall appeared between him and Izunia. All of a sudden there was no Daemon there any longer, but just an extremely sad-looking man barely older than his father. It were the red-rimmed eyes and the black ooze that seeped out of the corner of his mouth that gave him an inhumane appearance.

“Remember! Something doesn’t belong, Noctis Verus. Find it, and exterminate the threat to the Wall, before the King of Kings has to ascend to take care of this!”

* * *

The day started slow. It wasn’t much different than any other days in the Citadel, other than the occasional birthday wishes passed from the staff to the Seer. Ardyn watched as Noctis carried on with his day as if nothing happened, he even arrived late to Nyx’ training session. The man chewed the teenager out for it before handing over a sweet Ardyn knew was from Galahd. Iris ran up to him and hugged him, nearly crushing him – the girl was stronger than she expected, and Noctis had to plead her to let go, only to be nearly smacked into a wall by Gladiolus clapping a hand onto his shoulder.

After that, he vanished off to a room together with Ignis and Prompto, and Ardyn let out a strained sigh as he sunk into a chair. Something was bound to happen, he could swear it, but he certainly had no way of knowing.

It wasn’t until someone tapped him on the shoulder that he opened his eyes again. He had involuntarily cringed – at least that made it look like he had taken a nap.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your sleep or something, but...”

Ardyn got up and turned around. Noctis was staring at the ground.

“No, don’t worry about that. Shouldn’t you be downstairs enjoying the cake Ignis whipped up for you?”

“Yes, and I’ll go there once I’ve said my piece but… I dunno how to begin.”

Finally the Seer looked up at the King.

“Is it true you healed me from something when I was younger?”

“…!”

“I see.”

Noctis nodded and scratched his cheek a little, almost embarrassedly. Ardyn, on the other hand, froze up a little. His expression had given him away, and Noctis definitely was not stupid.

“How do you… you remembered that?”

“To be honest?” Noctis shook his head. “No. There’s nothing there, but I’ve decided to trust that person for the time being. But anyway. I’m supposed to forward a message to you. Whatever was going to happen to me then, or today, won’t happen. You stopped that by healing me, apparently. That is all.”

With that, Noctis left the room before Ardyn managed to find his voice again, and he sunk back into the chair slowly.

He had half imagined Noctis would be turning into a Daemon again today. Half imagined something even worse. Ardyn was so stumped by nothing happening that he didn’t even question where Noctis had gained that knowledge from.

He heard soft steps from behind and groaned.

‘ _You’re oozing misery.’_

“I don’t reckon you’re here to help me with that, though.”

‘ _Touché. But no, I am indeed not. In fact I should probably not stop here to speak to you at all but… congratulations. I heard that conversation. You’ve done something right for once in your life. A hundred generations after you tossed his ancestor out like a stray cat that bit you.’_

With that, Kar left, obviously slinking after Noctis. Ardyn just buried his face in his hands. He had a Seer in the Citadel. A Seer who was more like Izunia than he liked to admit to himself.

Somewhere downstairs said Seer laughed together with his friends.

* * *

“ _Something doesn’t belong.”_

He’d shared that with Prompto and Ignis, but even a week after his birthday none of them had come up with a suggestion what it could be. Prompto had said that maybe it was him, which Ignis and Noctis both immediately tossed out of the window.

“Cor brought you here, if you really didn’t belong you’d have been thrown out unceremoniously as hell. So no, don’t even go there, Prompto.”

“Besides, if we went by that logic… I wouldn’t belong either. Neither would Ignis. He’s an orphan, I’m a Verus Seer. I do hope Cor told you that story already, but basically. Me being here is the biggest irregularity, but I seriously doubt my mission as Seer would be to _kill myself._ No, there’s something else in here that doesn’t belong, and we have no idea what it is.”

The three of them crossed their arms and hummed. Noctis sat on the bed with his legs also crossed, Ignis sat in the chair he always sat in, and Prompto was lying on the floor. They usually shared any ideas they had about this issue every evening like this.

Eventually Prompto sat up. “The King, maybe?”

“No way. He’s old as balls – he’d be sooner telling us to get off his lawn than destroy the Wall he built himself.”

“Oh, right. I forgot about that, sorry.”

Ignis was snorting – Noctis hurled a pillow at him saying that he should not be imagining Ardyn telling them to get off his lawn but instead stay focused on the main task.

“No, but like,” Prompto ran his hand through his hair, “some _thing_ doesn’t belong? Maybe there’s something built into the Citadel?”

“Would you try plucking the very foundation apart with your bare hands? Thought so.” Ignis tossed the pillow back. “Although the thought is not so bad. There are cursed relics and the like that might interfere with the Crystal. Now the question is, who here would possess a cursed object from ancient Sol days that interfered with the gods-given gift that is the Crystal of Lucis? We are not at war. Not a single person would have reason to plunge Lucis into chaos – no, Niflheim and their hostilities doesn’t count. I know you’ve not been paying attention, Noct, but Niff hostilities mostly come from the fact we have a _Wall_ which they would like to possess themselves. If they destroyed it, they would not be able to salvage the art of conjuring it up, plain and simple.”

Noctis grumbled a little and placed the pillow back where it belonged. He stopped after doing that, and moved the pillow again.

“Something that doesn’t belong goes in… but doesn’t go out again. The Wall vaporises Daemons unless they… come from within and leave through it.”

From the floor came a concerned “Noctis?”

“But there weren’t any Daemons in Lucis, right…? Ignis?”

Ignis readjusted his glasses and shook his head. “None.”

The Seer’s expression changed. Of course there were Daemons in Lucis; his entire bloodline was the Daemon in Lucis. Maybe there were others, because Noctis was rather certain he had no living relatives other than his father, and his father was still in a coma anyway. Which, in turn, brought him back to step one again. Noctis grumbled and stared at his fingers.

Why did cryptic ancestors always have to be so--

He paused, and stared at the door. _Cryptic._ Barely a day passed without Ardyn complaining about one person knowing a lot more yet being unwilling to share information just to keep up a cryptic, “bullshit” facade, as the King put it.

“Cor Leonis!”

“Noct… He’s basically the King’s left hand…?”

“No, dumbass, I’m not saying it’s Cor who doesn’t belong here, but he might know what doesn’t!”

Ignis let the dumbass comment slide, because what Noctis said actually made sense. It was only Prompto who sat there with a furrowed brow.

“Hate to break it to you, but I spend more time with him than you do and… good luck with that? Even the King’s frustrated about how hard it is to squeeze information out of him.”

Noctis rolled off the bed and grabbed Prompto in a headlock. Ignis once more sighed and shrugged, knowing what would come next.

“And that,” Prompto was trying to wiggle out of Noctis’ iron grip, but Noctis didn’t let go even when he continued his sentence, “is why you will help us, Prom.”


	10. Chapter 10

_This story I am about to tell you, Your Highness, is about my family. Or rather, the family I never got to meet, the family I never knew existed until my father, writhing in agony as his humanity left him, told me what I am about to relay to you. It begins in Solheim, years before the rift, centuries even._

_Ifrit’s Messengers. One of them was a woman called Ferox. Ferox Izunia, to be precise. A woman who devoted her life to Ifrit, until her dying breath. In return, He made her His Messenger, and granted her remaining family a blessing. A blessing that would, in time, turn many a fight around._

_Eventually a counter-curse was put into place by the remaining Five – the first-born would be doomed to die before they turned 20 years. The second-born would always have the blessing, whereas the first-born always was burdened with the curse. The first-born was doomed to see death all around them, whereas the second-born had powers that most people could only dream of. Since then, it has always been elder sons and younger sisters – one such pair you encountered, namely my father and his sister._

_Ferox returned when it came to the Fall of Solheim, fighting alongside the God she had chosen, and caught in the raffle was a man who was merely trying to protect his sister’s son. I do think that is the Messenger attached to you at this point, Cor Leonis. Indeed, there seems to be something linking everything neatly together._

_The Izunia family survived the Fall – what else survived the Fall were curse and blessing, that ran through our veins. Sons, dying before their prime, and then daughters to pick up the families. So it continued, until Verus and Menda._

_Not a single person expected my father to live longer than 15. If I remember correctly, you fished him out of the lake when he was 26. That was when his luck, already insanely high for a first-born Izunia, turned around completely._

_That was also the moment that--_

* * *

MT production was quite strange. Why were all these children bred and raised only to be half turned into Daemons, and then the last humanity they retained other than their organs was replaced with heavy machinery?

After living within the Wall for a year, Prompto learned things. Even as the Wall was failing its King and his people, they were largely safe from things during day and night alike. Centuries of peace in Lucis, while any other region was terrorised by Daemons at night. He’d heard that Tenebrae was safer than the other regions due to the Oracle, but even then there were casualties and people afflicted with the Starscourge turning into Daemons as their loved ones could only watch in fear. After speaking to several people within the Citadel and asking Cor about it, Prompto learned that nothing of the sort had happened in Lucis for ages, and he had to wonder why the King never once tried to save the other territories.

After observing the King for a while, he learned that the man was simply not strong enough. There was something sinister beating within this man’s chest alongside his heart – a heart that could be very much described as ‘broken’ at this point.

Emotions were prohibited, so was fantasy. Yet there were defectives like Prompto who could not help but imagine; except that Prompto, sentenced to disposal, was now where he had always imagined he could go if he were free.

He had not imagined he would be dragged around by a Seer on his way to squeeze information out of the man who had saved Prompto’s life.

Trying to pin Cor Leonis in a position where he could not escape a thorough questioning was harder than the three of them had imagined. The man was slippery like a fish fresh out of the water, and managed to seemingly vanish into thin air whenever he needed to. They even went as far as asking the King for help, but all they got was a dismissive hand wave and a mutter of “good luck, kids, don’t expect much and the results might surprise you”.

They tried it for three weeks before Noctis was ready to give up. So they gave up, mostly, which Prompto was thankful for.

At least until, a few days later, Ignis claimed he had an idea.

* * *

_There were several opinions he had after a few years._

_First, and most importantly, this man was insufferable. He was melodramatic and overly emotional when he did not have to keep himself calm and collected on the outside, despite the strain his creation put on him. There were people that would have been immortals with a pleasant personality – Ardyn Lucis Caelum was not one of these._

_Second of all, he bore grudges way too long for his own good._

_Third of all, he was definitely not a gifted fighter; how he had lived that long was beyond Cor. Fourth and Fifth, he was cunning when he wanted to be, and much sharper than most people would assume when they saw him sway through the Sol ruins that were still intact but being tidied up to expand Insomnia upon._

_And sixth… he cared more than he let on._

_He’d usually stop to help people, as if it was compulsory. It took Cor a year to realise that it truly was, it was what he had been doing from the very awakening of his powers. He had conditioned himself to help the helpless, had no mercy on himself if he knew there was something or someone in trouble nearby and walked without a care in the world. As insufferable as Ardyn was, he truly and in earnest cared about the people and the planet._

_Not enough to kill himself for it, though. Maybe that was what Bahamut had claimed had gone wrong with him. The Seer and perhaps his sister had somehow managed to manage a change in the Healer’s heart; a change big enough that ascension and cleansing at the cost of his life was something that Ardyn could not stomach._

_Another thing he noticed when Ardyn had to part with another companion until eternity passed him, was that there was something extremely dark about the Healer as well._

_Serena had been Ardyn’s Chocobo. She would be known in the future as the last tamed black one before their steady decline up to near extinction in the future began, and it was sheer old age that made her unable to stand up one morning. Her chirp sounded nowhere near as cheerful as it normally did, and the Healer was suppressing gross sobs just barely. His entire body shook as he held the bird’s head gently, stroking the familiar black plumage. She lasted until noon, then her age finally claimed her, and Cor decided that this was definitely not the time to continue the long march back to Insomnia, especially not with the Healer now foot-bound._

_He scanned the area for some shelter and found an abandoned cottage._

_For some reason the Healer froze on the doorstep before the Messenger pushed him in properly, the heavy rain muting all sounds around._

_The place was positively empty, with essentially nothing but a few barebones remains of household items telling the story of someone at least having lived here several years ago. It wasn’t until evening fell and Cor managed to light the place up that Ardyn sighed and placed the black feather he had clung to all afternoon on the table. He dug through his pockets, eventually called forth his weapons and grabbed a lance from the selection – he placed that on the table as well._

“ _Of course. The place she accidentally brought me to first would be… where she goes last.”_

“ _Beg pardon?”_

_A deep, very very deep sigh escaped Ardyn as he looked around._

“ _Once upon a time, some idiot raised a Chocobo mostly by himself. He’d found her as just a mere hatchling, all abandoned somewhere in the woods. So once she was big enough to carry him, he taught her what she needed to know. And forth she brought him, eventually, until he came to a lake. It was the first trip he’d taken on her back that lasted longer than 10 minutes, and so he decided to take a break. And lo and behold, as fairy tales and the like go, he finds someone. Maybe it was some person trying to remain sane as the Scourge took over them, or just someone sick of living as was, but the idiot wasn’t going to let another idiot die. So he fished him out of the lake, and the lake man spoke of a sister, ragged with the Scourge. So the idiot promised help, and went forth. This little house we’re sitting in, Cor Leonis, is where the idiot was taken to heal the sister. It is the house where he gained the support of the man from the lake and the sister.”_

_It was that defeated laugh as he slumped together in the chair that really brought the point home. He cared, more than ever now with Serena gone, and the fact they had ended up in the very place he had gotten to know the Seer must have been but another punch in the guts he had already spilled several times for Lucis._

_The evening only became worse when, after some fond memory-sharing about the Chocobo (which had been mostly Ardyn rambling about her from the chick stage to the adult stage), there was a soft knock on the door._

_Cor opened it, and stared into the worn face of a young woman, her bright eyes gleaming unnaturally in the stormy night’s light alongside the Wall._

_It took him a moment to recognise her, but Ardyn definitely immediately saw something familiar and dropped his head on the table._

“ _Please, may I? It is… very cold outside.”_

_She introduced herself as Are. At least she was cautious enough to not give her full name and instead stick to something very generic for this part of Lucis. Are Mori. Too bad it was completely useless in this situation, and her blue eyes widened when Ardyn looked up and snarled out “Verus” at her._

_It was the one and only time Ardyn came into contact with a Verus Seer, and it was of course the daughter of Izunia. She had only come here out of curiosity, and her timing had been more than unfortunate, but Cor watched silently and unmoving as Ardyn started a tirade. Something about treason, something about her whole existence being an affront to humanity, and that he should chase her out of Lucis. Which he would, if he had the energy to do so right now. Her face barely even changed when he lost his grip on his remaining humanity and his eyes turned bright yellow and hollow._

_Cor suspected that she had seen someone turn into a Daemon before, and the connection wasn’t hard to make. Of course it would have been her father, considering how calm and collected she remained until Ardyn finished with a howl and regained his normal human face._

_She bowed, quietly. Her long black hair fell over her face so he couldn’t see her expression, but she might have just been able to hold her expressionless mask. She bowed again, and muttered an apology. Aressa Verus turned around and fled into the stormy night._

“ _You really ought to work on keeping your humanity together.”_

“ _I will, worry not. As long as you keep yours together as well.”_

“ _Hmph.”_

“ _Here’s to a long and prosperous partnership without any Seers.”_

* * *

The idea, plain and simple?

Sic the Oracle and her Messenger on Cor Leonis. It just so happened that she had been en route to Insomnia to follow her brother, who was coming here for negotiations. Prompto had no idea what made Ignis think that the Oracle would even remotely go along with this plan – until he met her.

She was sitting on a chair, positively sparkling in some otherworldly beauty, but her expression still managed to look cheeky despite her being the oldest one in the room. Noctis and Ignis had both greeted her casually, even going as far as just calling her ‘Luna’, and Prompto was kind of lost between this stunning beauty, his two best friends in the world, and the fact they were discussing a way to locate and pinpoint the man who had been taking care of him in the last year.

Luna had been trying to pet Kar for the last few minutes, but the Carbuncle simply refused to go near her. She looked kind of disappointed after those minutes passed, and finally she tilted her head.

“I see. Very well, you shall have my support, and Gentiana’s if you so wish. Alas she might be busy in the negotiations between my brother and King Ardyn.”

“Fair. You alone should be a tremendous help, though.”

“Did you not try freezing him to the ground yet?”

“Did. Don’t forget a Seer’s weaker than you and the King, and sadly the only time I had an opening he was talking to the King. I’d rather not get tossed out of a window, Luna.”

“Very fair point, Noctis.”

Prompto blinked. He wouldn’t have assumed the Oracle to be someone who suggested freezing a man to the ground just to ask him something.

Half an hour and several fruitless attempts of letting Luna pet Kar later, they emerged from Noctis’ room and went on a Leonis hunt again. The MT was still confused and followed, trailing a little behind. Eventually the Oracle fell behind as well and touched his shoulder. He cringed – she must know what he was, after all. Tenebrae was so _close_ to Niflheim.

Instead she was simply smiling at him. “It is good to see that he is not alone in this. Prompto, was it? I would like to thank you – a Seer’s fate is often more dire than they can imagine. You and Ignis definitely give him strength to carry on.”

It was then that Prompto remembered what Cor had taught him in the last year. Seers saw only death, and they ha died out except for the Lucian Verus line, which had somehow gained the additional ability of being able to change fate at the expense of their lifespan. Oracles, on the other hand, saw everything but death, they felt the hands of fate move – and most likely felt them stop if a Verus did so nearby.

Lunafreya’s smile was bright and warm, and Prompto stopped dead in his tracks in confusion. She _had_ to know what he had been specifically designed for, she must know what MTs looked like underneath their masks. He simply couldn’t comprehend how she could be so friendly despite that; indeed, worry flared up in her wide eyes. But it soon melted into affection of a sort again, and she shook her head.

“As long as you do not get too close to Ravus, you should be more than fine. I know how to differentiate, Prompto.” She laughed softly. “Prompto Argentum has to be the most thinly-veiled disguise ever, but I’d figure no one but spies and high-ups in Lucis would know what an ARG model of the PR0 series is. Who came up with this nonsense?”

“The… the King.”

“… That is… surprisingly unsurprising.”

“… It fits, somehow.”

“I never said it did not, Prompto. I just hope they are capitalising on the strengths you already have – after all, the PR0 series is made for sniping.”

Somewhere ahead of them Noctis stopped and waved.

“They do, Oracle.”

“Please, just call me Luna. Oh, and. Worry not, my lips are sealed about this conversation. Your secret is as safe as it has been for however long you have been here.”

She then broke into a small jog to catch up to Noctis, Ignis and Kar, once more starting a fruitless attempt at petting the Carbuncle. Which, in turn, merely lashed out at her and vanished off to skulk about and annoy some helpless servant.

* * *

“ _I am… surprised, King Ardyn.”_

“ _How come?”_

“ _A Verus Seer, permitted within the walls of the Citadel?”_

“ _A Seer poses no danger to King or Oracle. Their power has much diminished over the generations, and even back when they were powerful enough to pose a threat to either of us they barely managed a spell stronger than the base. That is, if we even do not point out that he is a child and his father in a coma.”_

“ _Would you not be able to wake his father?”_

“ _There are things a Healer can do that opposes nature, not unlike how Seers can change fate and how Oracles know of the threads of fate that spin around Eos. But no. My powers come from ancient times, my dearest Sylva. They never adapted to new times, and have essentially vanished outside of base healing, the power that the Six granted me, and the up-keeping of the Wall.”_

Ravus Nox Fleuret was no fool. At least he liked to claim he was.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum on the other hand was a fool, and liked to claim the opposite.

Still, despite all that, his mother had always appreciated the friendship between her and the King, and he was not going to ruin it simply based on the fact that he did not trust this man, especially not after he took in a Verus Seer and had that conversation with his mother on the day the Seer had thrown the Carbuncle on the chandelier. Today he was here as the current ruler of Tenebrae instead of his mother – Lunafreya had passed on that and focused on her studies to become Oracle instead – and despite him knowing what to do he found himself at a loss for words.

Something in this room was choking him slowly, not unlike the energy that seemed to seep through the night whenever Daemons were about to appear. The King looked unfocused and irritated as he glared at Gentiana, who was standing perfectly still and straight while leaning slightly against a wall.

He tapped his fingers on the table nervously, which made two of the three other people cringe.

“Stop that!” Aranea Highwind hissed into his ear, and he shrunk a little in his seat. “Focus!”

She was, essentially, part of the royal guard. Perhaps what one could call the Tenebraen equivalent of the Kingsglaive or Crownsguard – except she had a lot more power than Cor Leonis and Titus Drautos could ever dream of. Perhaps that was one of the good things about being the childhood friend of the successor to the throne. Therefore, of course she had come along to Lucis for this. And truth be told, he was grateful for it; he would not beg for help if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, and even still he found himself unwilling to even speak to this man.

He straightened up and cleared his throat, trying to catch the King’s attention once more.

Who, in turn, just shot him a sideways glance. “Speak up. I’m getting too old for this whimpering children muttering nonsense thing.”

Aranea kicked his foot. Gentiana stifled a chuckle.

Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this acting ruler of Tenebrae thing after all.

Ravus took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Surely you remember the last time my late mother was here, age be damned.”

Ardyn raised an eyebrow at that last comment; Aranea on the other hand snickered.

“I regret to come here on the same notice as my mother, but the situation has worsened in the recent months. During the night even small settlements are starting to get overrun by Daemons bound for the Lucian territories that now lie _beyond_ the Wall. Whatever is happening to your Wall, we know not, and it does not concern us, but Tenebrae, and I assume Cartanica and perhaps even parts of Niflheim, are being overrun by Lucis-bound Daemons of any and all sorts. We… we require your country’s help to withstand this.”

The King finally turned around to look at Ravus properly, and for a split second he could swear the man’s eyes were bright yellow instead of hazel. “I do hear and understand your plea, Nox Fleuret, but my hands are mostly bound. I am required to keep the Wall up, despite its failures in recent times. What I can offer you, at most, is help with fortification of the larger settlements and perhaps some of the Crownsguard and Kingsglaive along with a selection of skilled hunters. I do honour you and your country’s request, make no mistake. But you were present when your late mother requested something similar, and you do remember that I--”

Ravus scowled. “She died on our way back home, Your Highness. You would do her and her sacrifice more honour if you helped the children she died for – namely me and Lunafreya. And the best way to help either of us is to help Tenebrae.”

The silence that spread in the room was awkward and kind of shocked. Not a single person present would have imagined Ravus saying something like that; not even the goddess disguised as Messenger. Ardyn was more pleased than confused, though. There had been very few Oracles or relatives of Oracles that had stood up to him with a scowl on their face and a growl in their voice. Ravus might have been a shrew hiding behind his Messenger, Oracle and Commander, but when it came to it he definitely just proved he had the guts to put a foot down.

Ardyn smiled, which made the woman next to Ravus cringe a little. She definitely looked like she had just bitten into a lemon and leaned over to the Tenebraen King to whisper something in his ear. Ravus, on the other hand, pushed her away gently and just shook his head. He put a finger on her lips and shushed her before turning back to stare at the King.

“Very well, Ravus. You shall get my support. As you correctly claimed it is the least I can do to honour both the friendship between your mother and me, as well as the final sacrifice she made.”

* * *

The four of them peeked around a corner.

“Target located,” Prompto whispered and they gathered in a circle.

“So, what do we do now again, Iggy?”

Ignis adjusted his glasses. “He can’t escape all four of us at the same time. Especially not with Lady Luna on our side. He, as a Crownsguard, is obligated to answer to the Oracle, for she is royalty.”

“Sweet! So as long as we manage to pin him down and get Luna to speak to him, we’ll get answers somehow?” Noctis looked way too amused.

“Most likely.”

Cor Leonis stood at this part of the Citadel hoping to evade either of the currently present Kings. Ardyn was short-tempered to begin with, but that Ravus Nox Fleuret reminded him of an Oracle from a few hundred years past. That woman had been known for sending the King into flurries of unrelenting rage every time they talked. She had been insufferable and demanding, all paired with sharp intelligence and an even sharper tongue. Furia Nox Fleuret had been a fitting name – she certainly demanded and defended like a fury.

The fact that Ravus reminded Cor of her meant nothing good. And that was why Cor, hoping to avoid either of them and Gentiana, stood in this particular part of the Citadel at parade rest. He had no idea that the Seer, the Count, the MT and the Oracle were just around a corner and quietly discussing their plans.

He merely raised an eyebrow when the boys came around the corner and trailed along unusually slowly. They were up to _something_ , but Cor paid it no mind.

Only when the Oracle came around the corner as well he started to realise several things.

First, Bahamut would have been better off being called Baha _mutt_ for assigning him to watch over this atrocious human disaster that was the Healer of the Starscourge; he would have never gotten into this situation if he had just not been here. Second, Seers were more trouble than he ever gave them credit for; even with his piddly powers Noctis managed to somehow make a clear threat of freezing him to the ground. Third, the smile that the Oracle shot him could have killed mortals – it was sweeter than the most disgustingly tooth-rotting Duscaen candy he could think of, but it was also laced with the poison that the frogs from the same region carried.

“Greetings, Marshal.”

“… Lady Oracle.”

“Say, I have been wondering something...”

He knew he was done for.

“It is about the Citadel. Is there something weird built into its foundation, or something that does not belong here?”

Cor huffed a little. “Other than four nosy teenagers that should be minding their own business, you mean?”

Lunafreya laughed, “Yes.”

He had taken a liking to frustrating the King with withholding information. It was one of the very few pleasures he had, other than the two of them turning on each other every hundred or so years and just starting a brawl to relieve their nerves for the next century. He had pretty much absorbed this as part of his very being; the Messenger Marshal who never shared anything he knew. This question had been completely unexpected, on the other hand.

Truth be told, he had no idea. It was the first time he had no idea what he was being asked, and stared at the Oracle and the boys for a few seconds. There was a hopeful gleam in Noctis’ eyes – it clicked what they were trying to do. So Noctis, now that he was considered of age as per Seer laws, had been given his life’s purpose, and apparently it had something to do with something or someone in the Citadel not belonging. Cor was no fool, he knew of that.

He also knew that finishing this would inevitably turn Noctis into a Daemon… unless Ardyn healing him had done something to him.

In the end, Cor decided to simply shrug.

“I know what you are trying to ask of me, and I know the King must have complained about me not sharing anything I know to three of you, perhaps even all four of you. It is with a heavy heart that I admit; I do not know.”

The four of them remained silent, until at last Prompto exhaled and seemingly deflated.

“All of this trouble for _nothing_? You threatened to hang me from the roof upside down if I did not help you figure out where he was in the first week for _nothing_?”

* * *

_Seers. Oracles. Healers._

_The first and the last had died out by now except for one family and one person who had essentially claimed immortality. Three people – four if the father ever woke._

_The Wall flickered like static outside for a minute._

_Perhaps there was a way to do this faster, but the danger of being found out was too high. After all there was a little rat that knew too much, even if it was out of commission. That was the only true danger, the words of the Tranquil ever reaching the King. Sadly there was no way of putting the Father out of commission, and the Last would prove to be dangerous if this game continued playing in the brat’s favour._

_Seers._

_They should have never been, but sadly the worst of all rats had managed to survive too long._

“ _Tsk.”_

_The time to reclaim the birthright would come sooner now rather than later, and the person swished out of the dim throne room._

* * *

The Wall shrunk. Every month there was more and more territory lost to it, and the dark shadows underneath Ardyn’s eyes were starting to look like he was turning into a Daemon from exhaustion, Noctis realised.

When he was sixteen and a half, they were invited to Tenebrae. Luna had invited them to her brother’s wedding, and even if the groom scowled at them they had to admit it had been good fun acting as representatives of Lucis – Ardyn had been feeling too under the weather to leave Lucis and the Wall, and Cor stayed behind with him. They had to nearly drag Nyx back to Lucis bound and gagged; he and Lunafreya got along swimmingly. Almost as well as Ravus and Aranea, though Nyx or Luna would never punch each other on their wedding day, if they ever got that far.

Following that wedding she came by more often, since her duty as Oracle brought her into the Lucian territories that fell beyond the shrinking Wall a lot.

After their return from Tenebrae the training regimen, now supported by Gladiolus’ father Clarus, got stricter. Whenever Luna was in Lucis she was invited along. She was quite handy with a trident, and Noctis and her found a common bond by using polearms as their main weapon of choice. She commented on how old the lance he wielded was, and how beautifully forged it appeared, and they sparred quite often. Gladio had taken a liking to the greatsword; Ignis remained outstanding in the use of daggers much like Nyx; Iris had gotten quite adept at using a katana which made the ever stoic Cor Leonis smile; Prompto quickly earned himself the nickname “Eagle Eye” due to his accuracy at shooting.

When he turned 17 a man broke into the Citadel and nearly slit Noctis’ throat while he was asleep. The man was dragged out screaming that his entire family had fallen to Daemons just because the useless King had let his Wall waver. Ardyn’s hazel eyes were blank as he watched that, then turned around and just stared at Noctis for a solid minute before apologising quietly and leaving.

Half a year later, Ardyn found himself sitting opposite the now 19 year old Ignis Scientia, who was looking kind of embarrassed to have requested an audience with the King.

“I fear my eyesight might be failing me.”

“You have been going through glasses rather quickly recently, yes.”

“No, Your Highness. It might be failing me – my mother was nearly blind by the time she died. That is not something glasses can fix. I just… wanted to request one thing. Find someone else for Noct--”

“Absolutely not. Noctis loves you in more than one way, Ignis. You are his best friend, he trusts you blindly. Whether you can see or not will not change anything with that – he would be more heartbroken if you withdrew completely because of something that might or might not come to pass.”

“… Yes, Your Highness.”

Noctis’ 18th birthday was relatively uninteresting, other than more reports of Daemons and people afflicted with the Starscourge in Lucis… and the fact Nyx brought enough alcohol to actually get every single person present other than Iris, who was too young, drunk. The Citadel woke up with one giant hangover, and Ardyn Lucis Caelum was later reported to have screamed at Nyx Ulric when the King’s Carbuncle Kar was found strung up on a chandelier by his tail.

The following year was peacefully quiet, with Luna at the Citadel for the latter half of it. Much as the King had helped fortify Tenebrae, the Tenebraen King had sent the Oracle to Lucis to help the nearly dead from exhaustion Lucian King. Indeed, for a month the Wall did not shrink any further – until it started again and the Oracle and the King both started getting more and more tired.

It was his 19th birthday that finally managed to make Noctis realise how much time had truly passed since he had arrived at the Citadel one rainy morning.

They were sitting together, every person he knew and that meant something to him, from the King to Prompto. While Ardyn’s eyes were half-closed he seemed to be content to be here, and that was birthday gift enough for Noctis; he had started to think of the man as something like his second father.

Which was why he bolted to his feet much like the King when a maid rushed into the room and interrupted the discussion about Lunafreya’s newborn niece Stella. The woman looked to be in complete shock when she gasped for breath, bowed to the King and then uttered words that neither Ardyn not Noctis, nor any other person in the room would have ever believed had she not looked so completely out of it:

“Regis Verus, Your Highness, he… he _woke up_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Seers actually have titles, much like the royal arms. Regis hasn't really done much, so he's just The Father, much like in the game his weapon is just the Sword of the Father. The Tranquil is Aressa.  
> Why is Noctis "the Last", though?  
> (im still considering writing a dvd commentary on this au)
> 
> 2) Special shoutout to Noah "jonpahedrus" Aquilinus for his coffeeshop au and the incarnations of Verus and Menda that appear in there. I loved them so much, my god. I promise I'll get over my "other people's aus" fright at some point and write something for it.
> 
> 3) Special shoutout to James "thetealord" James for playing the ultimate wingman to what was just a side note about Ravus on the outline of this. Thanks for indulging me in my weird ships.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna say something witty here, but
> 
> noah, james, pretzel  
> im sorry but im not sorry  
> thanks for not stopping me and egging me on, slime discord in general
> 
> BUT ANYWAY.  
> (finally we get more of aressa's letter. the second half (?) of it will be in the next chapter)

He had stared down Seers on three occasions prior to this moment.

Once had been Noctis, once more messing with Kar – of course, a childish jest, but one that earned nothing but a long, silent and very very judging stare.

Another one had been Aressa Verus, for the split moment before he recognised that finely cut face and the bright eyes – she had answered with a very unchanging expression as he ranted at her, and he would never forget these bright eyes closing as she bowed, apologised and then fled into the night. Maybe he should have tried talking to her; she wasn’t Izunia after all.

The third was Izunia himself, dripping and looking kind of pathetic, but clutching whatever he had been looking for to his chest and thanking Ardyn profusely for saving his life.

He certainly had never expected to find himself staring at Regis Verus the 113th unable to say anything.

Instead it was the man – he had _aged terribly_ – who said something. His voice was very quiet and raw from sheer disuse, barely more than a hoarse whisper.

“… So you… Did not throw us out. How long...”

 _How long was I out?_ Ardyn was not sure how he would answer that question; he had already asked Noctis to stay outside and remain there until he explained his father that, in fact, 13 years had passed since he’d nearly dropped dead. Having a 19-year-old which Regis remembered as 6-year-old definitely would help the case – and definitely give the poor man a heart attack.

“How long was I… out?”

Ardyn tilted his head to the side. The Wall outside flickered dangerously, which Regis thankfully did not notice. The elder Seer was with his back to the window of the room. With the flicker Ardyn’s nausea came back and he licked his licks slowly.

“Thirteen...”

“Days?”

“No… Shiva, how do I put this.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Thirteen _years_ , Regis Verus. You have been unconscious, in a coma, for _thirteen years_.”

He took that comparatively well, all things considered. Most people would have asked about it stupidly, or started crying, Regis, on the other hand, merely blinked, maybe a tad confused. But no question escaped him as Ardyn stood up and shrugged.

“Maybe I should let your son explain.” The King walked over to the door and opened it. “Noctis, you can come in now.”

With that, the King left – and a young adult entered the room that looked nearly nothing like the child Regis had stuffed into the car before fleeing Frontier. It were only the bright blue eyes, glazed over with tears of happiness, that gave away that this man was indeed the very same person as the wailing child back then.

* * *

“ _Ardyn, I beg you! Please, listen, it’s not what you think it was!”_

_A week of fever dreams, most of them making him see Tenebrae again, except it was festering with Daemons that were trying to rip him into pieces as Izunia’s usually light and clear laugh turned more and more into something terrifying. When he woke up the first person he saw was the one that had tormented him in his sleep, and had Ardyn not been sluggish and exhausted he might have tried strangling Izunia for real, or grab the nearest sharp object and ram it into his chest just to shut him up. Izunia, on the other hand, had just sat there silently, barely moving, with a single tear running down his face before he got up slowly and got a medic._

_Izunia stayed away from Ardyn, as much as it hurt him. He instead skulked about on the island, looking for the creature that had clearly been here for several reasons._

_On the sixth day, he found it._

_Or, rather, it found him._

_He was absolutely unable to comprehend when he saw what was approaching him, and actually took a step backwards. This whole situation was so absurd he actually let out a small and confused laugh._

“ _No way.”_

“ _Oh, ye of little faith.” He could_ hear _the smile, but there was no actual grin. It was all teeth and fangs and terrible, terrible enough to make the breath catch in his throat._

“ _How on Eos...”_

“ _Blessed by the Infernian, cursed by the rest of the Hexathon. How does it feel to be an outlier to a rule, Verus Izunia? A walking contradiction? Somehow you gained Shiva’s favour, but the curse still broils in your blood; a curse She also placed on you, even if indirectly. That, and you mingled too long with a man blessed by the rest of the Hexathon, but cursed by Ifrit.”_

_His entire skin was tingling funnily, as if something was trying to leave him. He clutched at his face and turned away from his conversational partner. When he dropped his arm to look at it there was black ooze staining his hand and sleeve alike._

“ _Stop that…!” At least once it was dry it wouldn’t be that obvious on his dark clothes, but for him it was like looking at blood in the snow._

“ _Just know that before long you will be what he was told to destroy. Why do you think I changed my mind? He poses the greater threat, for you begging for the Goddess’ favour will turn the weaker one into a Daemon, while the other one is perpetually stuck between life and death.”_

_Izunia wheezed – there was still black ooze running down his face. The not-grin he was shot seemed to burn him, and he actually stumbled further backwards._

“ _No… No. You won’t… get it your way. Not as long as I live.”_

_With that, he fled. Ran until his legs gave out and when the stinging pain in his face overtook him. He fell to his knees at the water surrounding the island, and looked into the crystal clear water. Black liquid slowly dribbled into it, and he would have screamed if his lungs had not burned from running after nearly a week of doing nothing but sitting at Ardyn’s side anxiously._

_It stopped after two hours of searing pain, and he stuck his head into the water for a minute. The black washed away and Izunia was staring into his clear eyes once more, with bile rising in his throat. He’d ruined everything by somehow managing to defy the fate that awaited the first-born; somehow it had gone all wrong. The curse was supposed to work against him, not in his favour. Instead he had gotten more than he bargained for, up to the point he felt ready to pop like a thunder spell. His mother, as neglecting and downright abusive as she had been towards him, had a fair point when she used the last of her life to yell at him to finally die. All of this could have been avoided if he had just died before 20 like literally every single one of his ancestors._

_He sighed onto the water and closed his eyes for all but three minutes._

_Someone yanked him backwards by the scarf he was wearing, and he let out a strangled yelp. It was a familiar motion, he often got yanked backwards when he was about to bumble into danger like the blubbering fool he could be. Early in his life it had always been Menda, for despite her harsh words she actually cared about him. After her death it had been someone else, but that person never pulled as harshly as Menda had done. This yank, however, was downright uncaring and could have snapped his neck by sheer force..._

_Of course – Ardyn._

_The Healer was glaring down at him with cold eyes, and Izunia felt something inside him twist horribly._

“ _They’re scared you’ll catch death.”_

“… _And you? What do you think of all of this, any of this?”_

“ _...”_

_He turned around, and Izunia from his position on the ground could swear he saw Ardyn’s shoulders quake slightly before he recomposed himself and stood up straight for once._

“ _Just go back to camp. This conversation is over.”_

_There was a bright sparkle next to Ardyn as he left, and Izunia remained there for another hour before he went back._

_Where he had lain there was nothing but black ooze mixed with tears and a desperate attempt to clean it all off before he returned to camp, completely wet. The people at camp assumed he had tried to drown himself, and they weren’t that far off, really._

* * *

Truth be told, they had all expected Noctis proclaiming a return to Frontier. Ardyn and the by now half-blind Ignis sat together with their heads hung low for about three days before Noctis finally dashed any fears.

They would not leave the Citadel, especially not with Frontier long since behind the Wall and with Ardyn and Luna still working together to keep the remainder of the Wall together. Noctis instead offered his help, even if a Seer’s relative power was much less compared to an Oracle and the King, and Ardyn was about to accept the offer when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked tired, old, and about to snap into half. He hadn’t been that pale since back when he got attacked; not even his revivals looked this bad.

Thus, he looked back at Noctis as the door opened, and he shook his head.

“That will not be necessary. In fact, Lady Lunafreya herself is not even that necessary.”

He would regret these words, but finally he saw how tired she was.

Something was consuming the Wall from within, and Ardyn found himself standing in front of the Crystal once night fell. He was trembling as he put a hand on the Crystal – something he hadn’t done in ages. It pulsed underneath his hand, as if writhing, like a living thing. So far, so familiar. But the pulse seemed off. It had always reminded Ardyn of a heartbeat, gentle yet strong. Now it seemed to quiver, weakly trying to march on but failing.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone cleared his throat in the room, somewhere behind him.

Once more he found himself staring down a Seer, even if Regis Verus had a cane to support him and his bright blue eyes looked just about as tired as Ardyn felt. Still, the King tensed up a little. He had long since gotten used to Noctis and his looks and the like – Regis on the other hand was a face that was new to Ardyn, and once more it was like looking through a badly smudged and milky mirror.

A milky mirror that shattered almost instantaneously when Regis started speaking.

“I will not keep your attention for long, Your Highness, but there is...” He rummaged through his pockets for a moment, and Ardyn heard a soft crinkle. “This letter, although no longer the original, has been passed down in my family for generations and rewritten whenever necessary. It is addressed to you, and the original was penned by Aressa the Tranquil. I had a mind to give it to Noctis so he might pass it on to you, but… I hadn’t the time back then. A letter seemed unimportant compared to the safety of my son, if you will forgive me.”

“… There is nothing to forgive. You acted like any father would have. Place the letter on the steps, I will pick it up when I leave.”

“Thank you.”

He remained there for another few hours, hand on the Crystal. It was throbbing awkwardly by the time he left, and his hand felt raw and sore. Ardyn scooped up the letter with the other hand and swept out of the room in a stagger, only to nearly stagger into Cor.

I had thought you would preserve what energy of yours remains.

“As if...”

I am not chastising you for your choices this time. I must admit, your dedication to your Wall is stunning in many ways.

Ardyn raised an eyebrow in the dark. The Wall had flickered right as he did, and another wave of nausea hit him with such force he nearly toppled over. Cor put his hands on Ardyn’s shoulders and helped the King regain his balance.

I’ve had thousands of years. I dare claiming I know when you reach your limits now. And this is not from a Messenger to the Crystal’s Chosen; but rather from Lucian Marshal to Lucian King… Rest a little. I beg of you.

It was one of these rare genuine smiles that Ardyn cracked at people, but the Messenger nearly flinched when he saw that.

“’Fraid I can’t. Not as long as the Wall still holds.”

But… for how long will it hold? What will you do when it inevitably falls, and you are too exhausted to fend off whatever comes in?

“There is always ascension.”

Ascension.

This was the first time he ever saw the Messenger _deflate_ in defeat, somehow. There had been many broken sighs and the like whenever they had their petty spats and Ardyn, somehow, won, but this was new. Indeed, Cor looked absolutely at a loss for words for a second before his expression turned to something that could only be described as _crestfallen._ The King hadn’t even known the Messenger was capable of having such emotions.

You are… joking, right?

“You could say I am… dead serious.”

Ascension. You would be willing to do what you refused aeons ago _now_?

Ardyn closed his eyes. “Isn’t that what Bahamut sent you for, in the end? To make certain I would ascend as true king once it was required of me? And don’t even try to beat around the bush. That is the reason you tagged along.”

He wasn’t wrong. Much like Shiva posing as Messenger Gentiana – the original one had fallen alongside Solheim – made sure the Oracles were always taught what they needed to know, Cor had been sent to ensure the King, when the time came, would be ready to do what he had refused to do many a time during his long life.

I will not deny that as initial reason for my staying. What I am wondering is… why now?

The answer was obvious, of course. The Immortal King had somehow once more gotten attached to a Seer. Instead of Verus Izunia it was Noctis Verus this time, and instead of first companionship then love it was now a bond that wasn’t unlike the one of father and son.

Ardyn scoffed before a smile crept onto his tired features once more.

“Should the need of an ascension arise after all, you’re the only person other than Noctis that I trust with dragging my corpse out of that place without deliberately breaking all my dead and useless bones right there.”

Macabre. But fitting, somehow.

Cor watched as the King swayed down the hallway, an unusual bounce in his sluggish steps.

* * *

Half a year.

There were spots in the Wall when Ardyn finally called it a lost cause and contracted it as far as he could. He nearly threw up as he did, and there was blood along with the usual dark grime that ran down his face, but he was the only one in the room other than Cor and Kar when he did. At long last the familiar pristine gleam of the Wall was restored, and Cor swore that he heard the people of Insomnia cheer when the Wall returned to its previous state. Of course these people out in the streets would not know yet that it meant the rest of Lucis lay bare to Daemons, even if the Hunters had been informed and massively bolstered by Tenebraen hunters and soldiers alike. There were even reports of the Queen being out in the field, which Cor considered to be quite nonsensical considering she had a newborn child to take care of back in Tenebrae.

He caught a soft glimmer as Kar whisked up the stairs to the Crystal to sit down next to his master. The summoned creature took a long, quiet look at the Crystal before it finally turned its head slightly to glance at its summoner.

‘ _That won’t last, you know. You might as well get rid of it entirely, idiot.’_

Ardyn slowly shook his head – there was a suspicious sniffle when he raised a hand to wipe away some of the blood that had run down his chin – and just sighed. Even that sounded as if there was blood of black ooze congesting his lungs, some sort of bubbly. “No. It will hold now.”

Half a month.

It didn’t hold. Cor actually kicked that accursed carbuncle away from Ardyn before the King collapsed when the Wall flickered violently. Noctis caught Kar, although he looked kind of shocked that the Marshal would even do such a thing. But as Messenger, it was his utmost priority to take care of the person he had been assigned to, and so he dragged Ardyn away before any servants found their King unconscious in the arms of the Marshal.

When Ardyn woke again night had fallen, and the Wall was still flickering.

“Kar was… right...”

Cor shook his head. “No. What you did was correct, but something’s… messing all of this up.”

Ardyn rolled his eyes before closing them again. Cor thought he had passed out again, but then the King let out a long and tired sigh.

“I suppose it’s just sheer age finally getting to me. Humans aren’t meant to live forever unlike Messengers and gods. And before you pull the ‘Messengers were human once’ card on me – I know. But I am no Messenger.”

“… You could have been, easily. You meet the criteria better than I did when Bahamut took pity on me and my foolishness that he perceived as bravery. Perhaps it is for the best that Ifrit’s Messengers all burned or got buried alongside him; I truly doubt I would be able to defeat Ferox in a fair fight.”

A slow inhale. “You, uncertain that you could defeat someone in a fight? When on Eos did you turn that _humble_?”

The Messenger considered choking Ardyn right then and there for a second, but then sighed and shook his head back at him. “She was stronger than any other. It took Shiva Herself to take that fury of a Messenger down properly.”

Two and a half months passed in relative peace after that. No more collapsing. Just waves of nausea that hit him, and the Oracle trying to soothe his nerves a little. She was a great singer, Ardyn mused when she sang for her friends one night. If she weren’t Oracle, Lunafreya would have quite easily managed to become quite a main actress in a musical.

Shortly before Noctis’ 20th birthday someone requested an audience with the King. It turned out it was Aranea Highwind, confidently forwarding what message she had been given by her husband.

“Lunafreya is to return to Tenebrae with me after Noctis’ birthday.”

Three days before that day, the Wall shattered.

* * *

“ _You know what I’ve always been curious about?”_

_The campfire was crackling loudly that night, not that the three of them minded. Izunia was busy with devouring the leftovers, but stopped doing that when Menda raised her voice to address Ardyn. It was rare that she addressed him directly, or even just about as casually as that, and even the Healer found himself raising an eyebrow at her._

_She ran a hand through her short hair and drew a dome into the air with her hands. “That barrier of yours. The one you use against Daemons.”_

_Ardyn shrugged. “What about it?”_

_He hadn’t even been aware she had been observing him in combat like that. Izunia had completely stopped chewing by now and stared at his sister kind of dumbfounded._

“ _Shouldn’t you, like, be able to expand it, and hold it up for extended periods?”_

_It was again only the crackle of the campfire that made a sound. Both Izunias were looking at Ardyn now, curiosity plain on their faces._

_He had to admit, he had never thought about it. Not that he would do that out loud, so he decided to just tap a finger to his chin and hum nonchalantly._

“ _Theoretically, yes.”_

“ _And practically? You could easily turn the tide of every battle with that!”_

“ _Depending on size and amount of time it is being held up, I should be capable of pulling that off… but it costs a lot of energy to do so. I would need some sort of catalyst, perhaps, and then I should be able to hold it up, yes.”_

“ _Let’s say you get a nigh endless catalyst. What then?”_

“ _As long as the catalyst doesn’t get tampered with, as long as I live.”_

_Izunia furrowed his eyebrows when Menda started to excitedly chatter about the possibilities of this._

_It wasn’t until years later that Ardyn remembered this conversation. Mostly because the carbuncle he had called Kar by now asked the same question._

‘That barrier of yours, the one you use against Daemons...’

_Again, Izunia in the background furrowed his eyebrows. But this time there was actual disgust on his face when Ardyn explained it again, this time to the carbuncle. The creature itself proved to be a better listener than Menda; and Ardyn nearly backhanded Izunia when he kept making displeased noises of a sort._

“ _If you’ve something to say, so say it.”_

“ _...” Those blue eyes were like a terrified mirror – but for the first time Ardyn was not sure what Izunia was thinking. There was something, something_ darker _that the man was thinking, but he said nothing. Absolutely nothing._

“ _Then stay quiet for all I care.”_

_Izunia stayed quiet in the following days, he simply watched as Ardyn erected the Wall. A marvellous sight to behold it was, and Izunia knew that once Ardyn’s body recovered from using the Crystal like that, he was done for. He didn’t have the guts to tell Ardyn that he would be done for as well at some point; he’d just sound like he was making threats when people were celebrating the man who had nearly ruined his body for their sake. Verus Izunia sighed deeply as he awaited the inevitable._

_He took the banishment surprisingly calmly, merely nodding at the person speaking it before promising to take care of the Wall as well as he could._

_He left Insomnia, left it to Ardyn and Kar._

* * *

The silence in the Citadel was choking. All of Insomnia seemed to be in as much shock as Ardyn was, clutching at the windowsill he had leaned on when the wave of nausea had hit him.

All of a sudden he felt drained – he was just watching all these shimmering and glimmering shards fall and vanish into nothing but sparks. Hundreds and thousands of years, all for nothing. The Wall had fallen, and night would soon after; the sky was already tinted pink.

Mercifully enough everyone reacted at once when the King was still frozen in his place. They scattered and spread, made sure the population of Insomnia would be at their homes, they even made sure the homeless would be given a place to stay where they at least had light. Before long Daemons would come in here, and Ardyn knew that. He had seen these creatures at the very edges of the Wall in the past days, and Commodore Highwind had said the very same.

It were soft steps behind him that finally pulled him out of his shocked silence. Ardyn turned around with his entire insides twisting up with another wave of nausea.

It was just Kar.

‘ _I told you it would fail.’_

“...”

‘ _In fact, even that fool of a Seer all the way back then would’ve told you the same, if the spineless bastard had the guts to even speak to you after that Daemon attack.’_

“Spineless...”

It was then that Ardyn remembered the letter Regis had handed him. He stared at the carbuncle for a moment before taking off into a sluggish jog. He needed to find this letter, find it immediately.

Kar, on the other hand, simply got back on his feet.

‘ _Mhm.’_

Carbuncle and King left the room in different directions. Ardyn burst into the room he left the letter in near breathless – he was so _exhausted_ – and quickly went through a stack of papers. Of course the letter was on the bottom there, and once more he heard steps behind him.

“Cor, you just know when the worst time to appear is, don’t you.”

The citizenry is as safe as they can be. Night is falling.

“Well, I have a letter to read before that.”

A… letter.

“From a Seer no longer alive. Or, well, maybe alive, just a Daemon.”

With that, he tore the cover open and removed the surprisingly long letter.

* * *

_To the King of Lucis,_

_If this letter reaches your hand, I will be long gone. Maybe years, centuries, or even millennia will have passed by the time you read these lines, which I write in the last weeks of my life as a human being. My name is Aressa Verus, but the story I am about to tell is not about me, nor is it about my son Shiu Verus, nor is it about any other Verus Seers that might have come after me and Shiu._

_This story I am about to tell you, Your Highness, is about my family. Or rather, the family I never got to meet, the family I never knew existed until my father, writhing in agony as his humanity left him, told me what I am about to relay to you. It begins in Solheim, years before the rift, centuries even._

_Ifrit’s Messengers. One of them was a woman called Ferox. Ferox Izunia, to be precise. A woman who devoted her life to Ifrit, until her dying breath. In return, He made her His Messenger, and granted her remaining family a blessing. A blessing that would, in time, turn many a fight around._

_Eventually a counter-curse was put into place by the remaining Five – the first-born would be doomed to die before they turned 20 years. The second-born would always have the blessing, whereas the first-born always was burdened with the curse. The first-born was doomed to see death all around them, whereas the second-born had powers that most people could only dream of. Since then, it has always been elder sons and younger sisters – one such pair you encountered, namely my father and his sister._

_Ferox returned when it came to the Fall of Solheim, fighting alongside the God she had chosen, and caught in the raffle was a man who was merely trying to protect his sister’s son. I do think that is the Messenger attached to you at this point, Cor Leonis. Indeed, there seems to be something linking everything neatly together._

_The Izunia family survived the Fall – what else survived the Fall were curse and blessing, that ran through our veins. Sons, dying before their prime, and then daughters to pick up the families. So it continued, until Verus and Menda._

_Not a single person expected my father to live longer than 15. If I remember correctly, you fished him out of the lake when he was 26. That was when his luck, already insanely high for a first-born Izunia, turned around completely._

_It was also that moment that fate decided to change its wheels for a while. How long that while will last, I do not know, but my father, in his final moments of clarity as I shoved him beyond the Wall, said that his trials, and by extension yours, were not over yet._

_But perhaps I should start at the beginning of this._

_Blessing and curse are merely called a birthright in this family. It is a birthright to perish young, it is a birthright to gain the powers of what can only be called the last Messenger of Ifrit. After all, we are released to Ferox, no matter how much time has passed. Therefore, her blessing and the subsequent curse flow through our veins; even through mine._

_You have to know that my grandmother, whose name my father never told me, loved her brother. He died a gruesome death, one that she had to watch. He was begging her to end his life so the agony might stop, and she ran away. Ran away and pretended to be shocked when hunters came to the house and told her and her parents that they put her brother out of his misery. Therefore she decided, once she knew of the blessing and the curse, that she would never get attached to any sons she had and that she would make certain her daughter’s heart would not break like hers. Maybe it was a skewered show of love for Menda, for my grandmother suffered greatly under the death of her brother._

_When my father was born, she almost refused naming him. She had informed her husband of what would inevitably happen, and that giving the doomed a name would only make the pain worse. He got his name from his father, eventually, but he had spent nearly a year without a name._

_When he was three, Menda was born._

_And much to my grandmother’s horror, they became close. She tried oh so very hard to make Verus Izunia’s life hell, that he would despair and maybe end his life before the curse took him. She tried to manipulate Menda, she tried to manipulate him, but neither of them budged. Indeed, once they were older, Menda started defending her brother against the abuse he endured from their mother. To no avail, of course, and when he was 18, my grandmother finally grew too sick to carry on._

_She had contracted the Starscourge._

_Thus the children decided, before she would turn into a beast, they would end her life. Being just a young adult and a teenager too terrified to do anything, they chose a poison._

_In her last moments my grandmother screeched at my father to join her sooner rather than later, that he had_ no right _to live longer than her brother had. That he was completely and utterly worthless and doomed and that there was no way that clinging to life would change his fate. At all._

_Verus Izunia decided to cling to life, even if he had more close brushes with death before he met you than he could even recall. No other first-born Izunias had ever decided to cling to life and oppose their fate, for most of them simply accepted it._

_Normally the curse grants them to see death once they reach their 15th year, up to and including their own ones moments before it happens. It corrodes the minds of these unfortunate Seers – but not my father._

_When you fished him from the late, eight years had passed since his decision to defy the woman who had scarred him more than he admitted had died. Eight years that he spent with his sister, finally able to breathe without getting yelled at, or hit, or nearly strangled just for being alive. I recall he told me that you asked him if he was suicidal to dive into a lake for some trinket while unable to swim – you weren’t exactly wrong. Either he would get this thing his sister lost, or he would die at long last, for he couldn’t carry on with the Starscourge doing what it pleased to his sister._

_The wheels of fate changed, and the story of birthrights became one where someone twisted it all._

_By healing Menda Izunia of the Starscourge, you turned the wheels of fate against you. The reason your healing started corrupting you is because you healed the one person with Ifrit’s blessing and the curse of the rest of the Six – you are a man chosen to heal by the Five, but cursed by Ifrit. You invited your own destruction simply by being_ too nice.

_Not that you knew this, and not even my father learned of this until he pleaded Shiva for help._

_Yes, the very reason you stopped turning into a Daemon, as you might know by now, was because my father begged for the ability to shoulder this burden together with you. The Starscourge takes the weaker, and my father knew from the very beginning he was doomed to turn into the creatures you had sworn your life to wipe out._

_He didn’t mind as long as you got to do what your heart told you to do._

* * *

Cor was silently reading along, but Ardyn didn’t mind. Were this any other situation he might have told the Messenger that this letter was addressed to the King of Lucis, not to a nosy Messenger Marshal.

* * *

_Now that you have this letter in your hands, I assume what my father feared all along is happening or has already happened. Has the Wall given in, King Ardyn? It seems so strange, writing this while being able to watch it right outside my window. But my father insisted that one day it would fall, be it near or far future, and that we would be unable to stop it unless you realised several things._

_There is something in the Citadel with you that does not belong there, has never belonged._

_Maybe by the time this letter reaches your hands there will be another Irregular like me, who started having visions of death before he turned 15. This Seer’s mission in life will most likely be to help expunge this threat from the Citadel, even if it might be too late to stop the Wall from failing._

_My father never had the bravery to tell you what it was. His luck had finally run out, he realised, and you wanting him either dead or simply gone seemed like a suitable punishment. He just lamented the fact you did not listen to him until you actually said you wanted him gone and he left._

‘ _Aressa,’ he told me one day when I was 14, ‘you have an aunt.’_

_Have._

_Not had._

_I asked him what he meant with that. He looked out at the Wall and sighed deeply that day, and his voice was cracking as he went on._

‘ _The blessing, Aressa. She had the blessing. She was, by all means, akin to a Messenger. And a Messenger can only be killed by weapons infused with the blessing of one of the Six. She was never quite as dead as Ardyn and I believed her to be.’_


	12. Chapter 12

“Why can’t people ever just tell me-- agh!”

Cor skidded to a halt and whipped around. Ardyn was on his knees, the pages of the letter scattered on the ground around him like a broken fan. When the King looked up he looked embarrassed, and the Messenger dropped to his knees and helped the man gather up the letter once more.

The Immortal King, nearly moved to tears simply from having fallen, and his eyes shone strangely in the dim light of night. Of course, he was Daemonic in nature at the end of the day, and Cor stacked the letter together correctly again with a sigh. Normally he would have offered some sort of high-and-mighty Messenger nonsense as Bahamut had ordered him to give Ardyn, but with the Wall shattered Cor decided it was time to drop that act at long last. He had never wanted to be a Messenger, especially not one bound to a man as insufferable as Ardyn Lucis Caelum, but here he was; and the man he had spent an eternity with was on the floor with tears and a familiar black liquid streaming down his face.

It almost felt unnatural to address him in spoken language instead of the language of the gods, one that Ardyn understood with no issues other than Titan and his Messengers. But drastic times called for drastic measures, and Cor handed Ardyn the letter with a shrug and a small smile.

“Orders from the Gods. Trust me, if I hadn’t been ordered to be as cryptic and sparse with information as possible, I might have possibly dropped that act several hundred years ago. Maybe even several thousand years ago. Definitely a few generations. Now come on, Your Majesty. You are not _that old_ and fragile quite yet.”

There was a familiar sparkle in Ardyn’s eyes, even if they were completely yellow at this point. “That old, yes. Fragile? Have you _seen_ the Wall shatter? It’s a miracle I didn’t vomit out my lungs immediately.”

“Wouldn’t that have been fun. Anyway, King of Lucis, can you get up on your own or do you need someone to lean on?”

The sparkle was gone at this point. Ardyn, although with black liquid still running down his face, tilted his head a little to look out of the window.

The night was eerie for a split moment, before a bright flash from the plaza outside cut through the dark. Cor nearly jumped back to his feet, and Ardyn closed his eyes.

“This is an order, Cor Leonis. Not from the Crystal’s Chosen to Bahamut’s Messenger, not even from King to Marshal.” When he opened his eyes again, they had gone back to the normal soft brown. “This might not be much of an order after all. Consider it a request, then. You are to hurry out there, and help the people fighting there. Leave me in here; I can handle the harpy that we harboured for this eternity. Even so, I will join you out there as soon as I am able, but for now, leave me here. I will only hold you back with how badly my body is reacting to this.”

A moment of silence that stretched on for what felt like the eternity that Ardyn had spent alive. Then Cor nodded and stood up, slowly.

“Cross my heart, your will shall be done, Your Highness.”

A bow.

Then the Marshal Messenger of Lucis hurried off, towards the staircase that would lead him to the entrance, and to where the people they had essentially raised would be fighting together with the senior Seer, the High Lady of Tenebrae and the Oracle of Tenebrae.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum remained on the floor, breathing heavily, leaning against a wall.

“Dammit, Cor… Dammit. Neither you nor Izunia ever told me anything… How do I always...”

* * *

_Messengers. I had never paid it much mind. Of course I was taught everything my father knew about them by him in the… precious short years we had together. Not until the last night I spoke to him did I learn of the impact any of this had._

_Much as you are now, Messengers care little about the passage of time. And, much like you, they care little about the physical damage they sustain. As long as it is not a blessed weapon, a Messenger can simply regenerate endlessly._

_What then in case the Messenger’s body gets completely destroyed?_

_They take on a non-human form, spiritual, like a wisp of flame, a gust of wind, a sparkle in a dark night. They simply pass time until their body regenerates, the length of which depends on their strength._

_Ifrit’s blessing turned Izunias into Messenger-like beings, which manage to retain their human forms despite being Daemonic in nature. There is a reason my father and his sister dipped a timeless family heirloom, which should be in your possession still, in poison and turned it on their mother._

_It is what countless generations before them had done, though mostly the surviving daughters on their own. Perhaps if you still own this lance my father carried, you could confirm my claims together with your Messenger companion. Perhaps you sent him off already to do something, in the event that the Wall has truly shattered. I just sincerely hope you believe my words, for I speak nothing but the truth._

_Menda Izunia, my aunt, is with you. Has been with you for however long it has been since I wrote these lines and this letter reaching your hands._

_That is what my father never brought himself to tell you, even if you had listened and believed him at the time._

_What attacked you that day in Insomnia was a Daemon, yes. A Daemon that had been travelling with you for quite a while._

* * *

He had seen nights without the Wall before. They had been in Tenebrae for a week, after all, and Noctis, Prompto, Ignis, Iris and Luna had spent ages looking at the stars above. Ignis especially had been nearly moved to tears that night, and as Noctis now knew it was because he might never see this again. Still, as the world turned as he fell, he couldn’t help but wonder… did people ever look up at the sky and just felt lost? Because that was what Noctis felt now as the Daemon pushed him over.

He felt lost.

They had spent what remained of the daylight to make certain people were safe. They had regrouped in front of the Citadel after sunset, thinking they still had time to also manage getting back inside to safety. Of course they had been wrong and were nearly immediately surrounded by strangely gangly Daemons. About a hundred or so of them. Noctis realised what that meant after they had thinned out these numbers considerably, and he had misfired his spell. It crackled somewhere in the air, residue magic he could call back perhaps, had said Daemon not run him over and made a beeline for his father.

It happened to fast he barely had a moment to even blink and think about it, but he was immensely grateful that this was not the same night as Frontier. It was not Regis shoving him into a car and fleeing the already overrun home Noctis knew and loved, but instead it was the new home he had found himself. With people he knew around him to help his father.

Aranea Highwind, who should have not been here nor involved with any of this, plummeted from the sky like a meteor and impaled the thing that had barrelled Noctis over and had been getting charging at his father to crush him with its weight. There was an ugly crunching noise along with the sound of the ground splintering a little from the impact, and she bounced back like a playing ball with the spear still in her hands. The Daemon was flung into the air, and as Aranea landed lightly on her feet with a small grunt, the creature was hurled away in an arc, black grime tracing its path until it hit the ground once more with a nasty-sounding squish.

“You okay there?” Prompto had grabbed Noctis by the hand and pulled him back to his feet. “We ain’t done yet, Noct. I got your back.”

Noctis wished he had it in him to tell Prompto that they were slaughtering people, his ancestors perhaps. But, most likely, Prompto at least knew that these things had been human. They were way too misshapen to be a run-of-the-mill Daemon. So he simply nodded to his friend, tapped Ignis on the back, and the three of them started attacking one of the larger of these things.

It wasn’t until they had considerably reduced the amount of Daemons out here that Noctis noticed something.

He had never paid it much mind before, for he always assumed that only Ardyn could command this particularly unwilling fighter, but Kar was simply sitting there with his tail swishing gently. Of course there was the familiar sparkle that always comforted Noctis, but… the Daemons seemed to ignore Kar completely.

He didn’t know much about summoning to begin with, but this was odd. Very odd.

Odd enough that he didn’t notice that something drove the Daemon he was holding off with his lance back.

* * *

_You see, you would have never started corrupting yourself if you had refused a very single question. You could have simply fished my father from the lake and refused his next request to save yourself a lot of pain down the line. You did not, and perhaps still don’t know why you started corrupting yourself all of a sudden. Let me explain._

_Blessings and curses can counter-cancel each other._

_Ardyn Lucis Caelum, you are blessed by Bahamut, Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan and Titan; in return you are cursed by Ifrit._

_Menda Izunia was blessed by Ifrit; in return she was cursed by Bahamut, Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan and Titan._

_What you did by healing her was cancelling out most of her powers; in return you destroyed what walls protected you from Daemonic influences. You effectively hurt yourself to cancel out a blessing and curses by putting your blessings and your curse on the other dish on the scale._

_Balance is what the Hexathon promoted when they made certain Eos had what it needed._

_You turned into an impure Healer; she turned into a near powerless Corrupter._

_The only power she retained was the power to regenerate and keep existing in a non-human form. Back in old Solheim days Messengers usually appeared as what people called Sylphs; a summon of strength as well as tranquillity._

_Modern Messengers, after the Fall…_

_Carbuncles, Your Highness._

* * *

He would have loved kicking the Carbuncle again, but Cor’s main focus was the Daemon that had nearly swallowed a distracted-looking Noctis whole. Before he could even register it properly the accursed creature was gone, and the Daemon writhing on the ground, and Cor cursed. Loudly.

“Back into the Citadel! All of you! We need to regroup in there and find what has been causing this!”

Mercifully enough they moved. The Daemons had stopped their assault for now, for some reason Cor couldn’t quite fathom. Aranea Highwind had offered Regis Verus an arm to hold on as she made sure everyone else made it back into the Citadel, but Cor found Noctis trailing behind. Indeed, the younger Seer looked extremely bothered by something, and stopped halfway up the stairs to turn around. The creatures were withdrawing, and Noctis froze.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

Cor stopped, too. Something about this had started to bother him as well. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Something else is happening here, isn’t there.” It wasn’t a question, and Cor would have not been able to answer this one properly anyway. “Something or someone doesn’t belong here. Find it, and exterminate it. That was my mission, and I think I’m starting to get it now. I think I get it now. It wasn’t some _one_ who didn’t belong, it was some _thing_.”

Noctis started descending the stairs again, and Cor bit back another curse. He should be in there, making certain Ardyn was still in one piece, but Ardyn would never forgive him if something happened to this Seer slowly moving back to the centre of the plaza.

“At first, I considered it being myself, or my father. Like, for a day, maybe. That either of us would have to die – it didn’t make sense, we had always looked out for the Wall. Generations over generations, all in Frontier, all making certain this thing I barely understood was in one piece. Next, I thought it was Prompto. He told me, you know. A few days ago. He’s not of Lucian descent, perhaps not even ‘human’ per say. I told him it didn’t matter, and I realised that it was that exact case; it didn’t matter. He’s my friend. I considered many, many people.”

He had reached the middle of the plaza and stopped now, looking around. The night was free of any clouds, and Cor found himself marvelling at how beautiful the sky looked. Noctis was staring up there as well, his clear eyes reflecting the stars.

“Ignis. Gladio. Hells, I even considered it to be you for a moment once. You know what I never thought about? That it could be someone or something far older than that, or you.”

That was incorrect, but Cor didn’t say anything. No one but the Oracle, her Messenger-Goddess and the King knew that he was a Messenger, and Noctis would find out sooner rather than later anyway.

“Almost as old as the King himself. That can’t have been a person; there’s no Messengers I know of attached to Lucis, unlike Lady Gentiana and Tenebrae, and whatever Messenger of Ramuh spends his idle time in Niflheim, and that woman who comes and goes with the tides in Accordo. It’s not a person in the general sense, it’s a creature. That’s it, the thing you couldn’t tell me the night I turned 15, correct?”

Cor snapped his attention back to the Citadel and the surrounding plaza, and found a single Daemon slouching over not too far from Noctis. It was horribly deformed like the rest of them had been, but was considerably smaller than the rest of them. It looked almost human-sized, perhaps even human-shaped.

“The thing that doesn’t belong… Kar. The King’s Carbuncle. Tell me, Izunia Verus, is that what I needed to find?”

There was no answer other than a low gargle for a few seconds, before a surprisingly shaky voice behind them spoke up.

“That is correct, Noctis.” That voice sounded defeated, and the low rustle of sheets of paper scattering to the seven winds made Cor cringe.

Seer and Messenger turned around to see the King limping towards them, a grim expression on his face. Noctis gasped audibly once he saw that Ardyn was covered in black grime, and Cor squeezed his eyes shut. Aressa Verus’ letter was strewn on the ground of the citadel, some sheets gently moving in the soft night breeze.

“I’ve been played for a fool for centuries, millennia.” He brushed past Cor and Noctis, slowly but steadily. “I’m just wondering when you figured it out. Because you must have known some things before I cast you out like the traitor I believed you to be. But considering what your daughter wrote me, you didn’t have a full grasp on the situation, and there were things you learned during your banishment. She’s right, you and she were both cowards, but I was a spiteful bastard as well and didn’t manage to see. Then again, I was a Healer – you were the Seer. Izunia.”

The gargling noise stopped at this point, and the Daemon slumped forwards a little. That thing barely looked like it was a sentient being, let alone one that understood human speech, but both Noctis and Ardyn had spoken to it, and it had reacted… _somehow_. Cor refused to believe that was the same hollow-eyed man he had seen in Frontier all these years ago, though. That just seemed wrong. Insulting, perhaps. He had the look of a broken man, but he wouldn’t have given up and let his entire body turn into what was more abomination than human that easily. What he heard from Ardyn about this man painted a picture of someone nearly as stubborn as the King.

Once he got over that, much to his horror, he realised that Ardyn was still limping towards that thing. There was a strange determination in this march towards this Daemon, one that he had rarely seen Ardyn walk with. Normally the King was like a limp noodle, unwilling to even stand straight. But now he limped forward and finally, for once in his life, looked regal while doing so. If only it weren’t towards this… _thing_ that might have been Verus Izunia once upon a time.

Cor finally caught a spark that seemingly came from Ardyn’s hand. It was a familiar glint, an ancient power that none other had any longer. Healers had died out when one attained a terribly wretched immortality.

“You can’t mean to--” Before he even finished his sentence the King laughed softly.

“I mean to. It’s the only chance I have to pry an answer out of him.” How in earth did Ardyn manage to sound so _cheerful_ despite what was going on? Cor would never really understand that, and it ticked him off. At least it would have, if he didn’t know the implications of what Ardyn was planning on doing.

“It’ll kill you! You cannot heal people that far gone!” Noctis let out a shriek when Cor said that, and tried following Ardyn, but Cor found himself grabbing the Seer’s arm to stop him.

“Take Noctis back in, and find Kar. Make sure you take care of this mess. I’ll see I get the answers out of the Seer himself. And that’s an order this time. Go.”

* * *

_I know not when these words will reach you. I hope it is not to late when you see them._

_My father is beyond the Wall, somewhere._

_He split the burden with you, as you might or might not know. As you corrupted yourself further and further, he said it was as if parts of himself were dying with every shade of darker your blood became, the worse your fever fits became. The night he pleaded with a Goddess that had cursed him was the one where he finally made his peace with simply being of cursed blood. He but asked to receive what was another curse, to lessen your strain._

_The weakest people turn into Daemons._

_My father, beyond the Wall, is one. I am starting to turn into one._

_We bear the burden that my father placed on you and tried to move off you once he realised what was happening. I bear it with pride, even if the time I had with my father was short and the only time I met you you wished death upon me. I hold no grudges, King Ardyn._

_I am just sad I never got to meet the men you and my father must have been before all of this happened._

_My sincerest wish is, when this letter reaches you, one of our blood will have handed it to you. That this person will help you free the tormented remains of the Seers before them, and that they put a stop to whatever is happening._

_We cannot leave Frontier. I never had the bravery to do so. Neither had my father. Perhaps we are cowards by design._

_Whoever hands you this letter and fights beside you, I trust, is not as much a coward as my father and I, and perhaps my son Shiu, were._

_Aressa Verus_

* * *

Now that he understood why he could never heal properly, especially not after he had returned from Tenebrae together with Izunia and Kar, he almost started laughing. Of course it was going to fail more and more, and fill his lungs with acrid fumes until he passed out. The source of all that was right with him the entire time, and Ardyn sighed heavily. At least Cor was forcing Noctis back into the Citadel, even if the Seer was screaming by the time Cor was forced to pick him up to get him up the stairs. As long as the only blessed weapon in the Citadel was inside and hunting down a Messenger nothing could go that terribly wrong, and Ardyn still had the chance to at least _try_ what he thought of.

“How long have you been like this by now?”

There was only a slurred something that escaped that Daemon – was he moving backwards? – and Ardyn shrugged. His entire arm burned like someone had set it on fire when he reached forwards to put a hand on what he assumed was that thing’s face. It certainly was hard to tell with this particular Daemon. Like any Daemon it cringed and tried to move away, but even though Ardyn’s entire body screeched in protest at this point he followed the movements it made.

“Izunia… Verus. Ha. Look at us, one unable to die properly and the other… You look pathetic.”

“ _A...aaaaaaar…”_

His blood felt like it was boiling, and his arm was turning numb by now. Cor was correct, he could not heal people that far gone. He had never been able to do so, he certainly was not going to be able to do it hundreds of years later. Still, that hand he had placed on the Daemon’s face, though it was as numb as the rest of the arm, had an effect. Just for a split moment he could see skin covered in grime instead of whatever this was supposed to be.

That moment was over when the creature that had been Izunia knocked him over.

For some reason it hadn’t used the clearly dangerous scythe-like arm to do so, but Ardyn thanked the Six that he’d not been cleaved in half right there. Still, his body was too sluggish and numb after the Wall’s disappearance to get back up immediately. He sat on the ground slightly dazed and very dizzy, and just stared at that thing.

“Well, aren’t you as charming as you’ve ever been. Though, I guess I had that one coming.”

He finally dragged himself back up and tried getting some distance between him and the Daemon. The spell had been broken, and it was moving to attack in earnest now.

Ardyn phased through an attack, the scythe just barely missing his head and cleaving off a part of his scarf.

“Once the bitterness left me, I just wondered how you never lashed back. I’ve been terrible to you before I cast you out like dirt; that must’ve been precisely how your mother treated you when she was alive. How on Eos did you not take your lance and drive it through my stomach right then and there, Izunia? Why now, or all times? Or is that related to… Oh goodness. You’re not doing all of this willingly, are you.”

Of course there was no answer other than another gargle and another slice. Still, something about the way the Daemon moved was strange, the attacks were way too choppy. Normally people retained their physical strengths and weaknesses when they turned into Daemons. Which would have meant that Izunia should have been a fast but light attacker. These sluggish, brute swings were not the way he should be attacking right now, and even if the phasing made his nausea worse, Ardyn continued doing it.

There were plenty openings, and even though his entire body might give out if he did that, it was his only chance.

Another sluggish swing, and finally the creature staggered. Ardyn took a deep breath, asked Shiva to forgive him for that, and warped right into the Daemon. He grabbed its head with both his hands as his weight toppled it over and they both well to the ground. The sound that Daemon made was ugly and way too wet for Ardyn’s taste, but he dug his fingers into that creature’s head and did what he hadn’t done in earnest since the days he had been mortal.

Warm, yellow light spread from his hands, and he could already hear his entire body scream in protest alongside the Daemons in the back of his head. The numbness gave way to searing pain, and Ardyn choked back tears. He had to focus. This was the only chance he had.

“I… zunia. If you can… hear me now, tell me… Did you… know… when you left?”

More gargling, but it was turning decidedly more human. Still not a voice Ardyn remembered, but there were traces of it in there.

“Answer… me.”

“… _No. Not fully.”_

He hadn’t even noticed he had held his breath. Ardyn exhaled, slowly. His strength was leaving him already, and the world was turning even worse than it did before.

“ _No need to kill yourself over me. Let go, I think you broke her hold over me.”_

Ardyn rolled off the Daemon with a long sigh and stayed right where he landed. Even if that thing turned out to lose its sentience once more and slashed him open now, he wouldn’t particularly care. Something about the cold pavement against his cheek was making him feel alive despite the ache that ran through his body as he shook.

“ _To answer your previous question, though… Aressa was correct. I was too much of a coward to lash back; the fact I was perfectly unable to hurt you physically aside.”_

Ardyn clicked his tongue. The feeling returned to his body slowly, and he slowly pushed himself back to his knees.

“You should’ve.”

“ _Couldn’t.”_

The King exhaled slowly, gathering up the strength to get back to his feet. He thanked Shiva quietly for not sweeping him away quite yet and dusted off his clothes. The Daemon, on the other hand, looked more like how he had appeared to Noctis in his dreams by now, with parts of a human face visible. And Ardyn could clearly see that it was Izunia’s eye, though yellow now, that stared up at him.

He took a deep breath and straightened up a little.

Somewhere behind him something clattered against the ground, and Ardyn thought he felt his heart stop right there. He closed his eyes slowly to turn around and opened them.

* * *

Verus’s lance. Drenched in blood.

Behind it stood a terrified-looking Noctis.


	13. Chapter 13

“Marshal! Marshal, let me go! Please! Please, let me go…! We can’t leave him alone out there!”

Noctis didn’t look like it, but he was quite strong. Strong enough to even make the Messenger Marshal struggle with keeping him grabbed so he would not run out again.

“Orders are orders, Noctis.”

“No! I don’t care! I’m not-- lemme go!”

Cor actually let go. Noctis stumbled a little, looking at the Marshal in surprise. The Marshal, on the other hand, stared into these wide eyes that glowed. He had long since gotten used to the eyes of the Seer, red-rimmed and terrified, but something about them right now sent cold shivers down his spine. He had seen them, the elder Izunia son, when Solheim fell. A young boy, barely older than Cor’s nephew, with eyes wide and glowing and absolutely horrified. The way the kid had looked up to him had tugged at the fresh Messenger’s heartstrings; and these eyes that glowed even in death haunted him until he got so restless that he earned the name “Renegade Messenger”.

“Noctis, be reasonable. He asked us to leave – what does that tell us?”

“That he’s an idiot who will get himself killed!”

“Well, fair point. But he knows how to handle Daemons. He is in fact the only one who can reliably disable them. You should know that.”

“…”

“Now then, other question. That vision you just--”

Before he could finish the question a body dropped from the top of the stairs. Noctis let out a yelp and dove behind the Marshal, his fingers digging into Cor’s arms. It seemed unusual for Noctis to be so terrified of something.

Then Cor remembered.

“… You’re scared of the dark.”

Of course Noctis would be. He had been a child when the Wall failed around his home, and in that dark Daemons had flooded his home, destroyed the place and near fatally wounded his father. Of course the young man would be as terrified of the dark and Daemons as he had been when nightmares had kept him awake, and Cor turned around. He freed his arms from the Seer’s grip and put both hands on Noctis’ shoulders reassuringly.

“It’s alright. Ardyn will be fine, and you will be as well. You just need to stay strong until we find and get rid of the accursed furball, and then it ought to be over.”

Daemons in Noctis’ home, thirteen years later. Of course he would try to get to the one person he knew would keep him safe – but Ardyn was currently busy. Besides, there were still Daemons all over the Citadel, _inside it,_ and there was the unsolved case of the King’s Carbuncle. Aressa’s words had been clear. That one was causing all of this.

Cor clicked his tongue. “Are you with me, then, Seer?”

“… Y-Yes, Sir.”

It sounded uncertain and frankly kind of terrified, but Noctis reached for the lance. “Right behind you, Sir.”

* * *

_  
You shall be his shield, his sword, his constant companion, until he is ready to face the fate he refused to face._

“ _Very well. If you may allow one question, Draconian?”_

_Proceed._

“ _What fate?”_

_The fate of a Healer. Magna Curaja._

* * *

It felt like the end of the world, or at least the night he left Frontier all over again, and Noctis was quaking in his shoes the entire time. He trusted Cor, he trusted Ardyn, yes, but something about this entire situation seemed absurd enough to warrant terror, his fear of the dark aside. It was as if something was following him around, and he still hadn’t exactly gotten to terms with _Kar_ being the main force behind this. It was completely and utterly absurd, but the longer he thought about it the more sense it somehow made.

“Marshal…?”

They had carved a way through a familiar hallway that had been littered with minor Daemons and made certain the Citadel staff they had rescued was safe somewhere with a light source. Noctis still felt the familiar fizzle of magic in the air as he held out a small fireball to light up the dark. He hadn’t missed the dark shadow that crossed the Marshal’s face when he saw that fireball and how Noctis preferred these in combat over anything else.

“If you would p-prefer it d-dark, I can...e-extinguish it.”

Just for a split second it looked like the Marshal was going to say yes, and Noctis already inhaled slowly to get rid of the small source of light in his free hand, but then Cor shook his head.

Noctis still technically was a child of the Izunia family, although the family name had gotten lost in history and the blessing diminished greatly. Of course he would have an affinity to fire, and Cor cursed himself for not realising it sooner. The Seer had been setting things on fire until he learned to control his magic properly. Noctis had always preferred the warm, the light. He had used the cold and ice as severe threats when he wanted something instead of an element he was used to – Ifrit and his Messengers had been undone mostly by Shiva’s might, the Infernian himself lay buried under stone and ice, but mostly ice.

Naturally someone with even a slight relation to Ifrit would use ice as dire threat and see fire as something that helped.

“Just don’t incinerate all of us.”

The Seer nodded and looked around. The two of them had made certain that the others were still in one piece, with Lunafreya leading the group while carrying what looked like a small light around with her. She and the others were sweeping the Citadel for any other staff locked into rooms and for stray Daemons, and Cor and Noctis were working on the lower floors to make certain that the Carbuncle was effectively locked between a rock and a hard place.

It was a shuffling sound behind them that made Cor turn around quickly and shove himself between Noctis and whatever made that noise. Mission from Bahamut or not, he had essentially watched that Seer go from terrified child to reliable and gentle young man, and he was not going to let some Daemon put an end to that. And besides, even if there was the slightest chance of Ardyn doing as the gods had told him to 6,000 years ago, that chance would instantly vanish if something happened to Noctis. Not that Cor wanted an Ascension to take place, at all.

There was nothing in the hallway.

Cor exhaled slowly – he was on edge, too much to truly look for the creature at this point. But Noctis behind him moved slightly to peek out behind him with narrowed eyes.

“Something’s there.”

“Probably just a low-end Daemon that slipped in.”

“No… Marshal, something’s _there_. Like… around the corner.”

He didn’t dare asking if it was the Carbuncle, but Cor slowly approached the corner. He peeked around it equally slowly, but there was absolutely nothing. He inhaled slowly – perhaps this entire situation was getting to him as much as it got to the Seer behind him.

He didn’t turn around again.

A dull ache spread through his body, and he only slowly blinked when he saw the shaft of Noctis’ eloquently crafted spear sticking through his stomach.

Another thing he should have realised sooner, perhaps as soon as Noctis pre-emptively started turning into a Daemon.

“So that’s… how you...”

“Of course,” Noctis said, an unusual glee in his voice, “it took you long enough to realise. Too bad you won’t be able to tell your _precious_ Healer. He was _so close_ to realising _what_ made the Daemons act united several times, and he sadly made it impossibly to fully control this one, but alas. Beggars, choosers. You certainly would know the drill.”

Cor drew in a shaky breath. “Impossible to… fully control… Noctis?”

“Well played, I must admit. I had not thought that he would succeed to heal actively after everything that happened, but of course it had to be the sole exception to the rule. Still, there’s a back door, and I’m certain you can figure it out before you bleed out or pass out from shock. Oh well. See you around, if you survive the night.”

Blessed weapons had always been the only thing to successfully kill a Messenger, which most people who were out to kill one knew. Verus Izunia’s particular weapon had been handed down to the first-born, and was always kept by the second-born until they had children of their own, repeating the cycle. The only remaining weapon blessed by Ifrit, and Cor had always known it was some sort of danger. But Noctis had always been so perfectly _harmless_ in his eyes that he barely even considered him a danger.

The Seer yanked the lance out, but did not move any further.

Impossible to control fully.

Cor leaned against the wall with a huff and stared into Noctis’ wide eyes. The Seer looked legitimately horrified when he saw that wound and then the bloody lance in his hand. The Marshal, on the other hand, smiled vaguely.

“Change of plan. Back to… Ardyn with you. Go. Orders.”

The Seer was frozen in fear, his hands gripping the lance tightly. Just out of the corner of their eyes they caught a familiar sparkle whisking around a corner, and Noctis unfroze at last. He started moving, slowly, sluggishly, and Cor let out a low, pained hiss.

“Catch her, Noctis!”

* * *

_He was ten when he first woke up in his room in cold sweat._

_He clawed at Ignis’ arm in fear, but his best friend merely grumbled in his sleep and rolled around. Kar was also rolled up and refused to move, and Noctis couldn’t sleep. He felt like something in his veins was on fire. So he walked around the Citadel until he finally passed out on a couch in some room, and was woken hours later by Ignis shaking him frantically._

_It happened regularly since that day, every month or so he would wake up with no recollection of ever having gone to sleep. There was simply a vast, black sea quietly shifting in his head, and his blood roared in his ears._

_He played it off as insomnia at first. Made a lame joke about having insomnia in Insomnia to Ignis and never mentioned it again._

_Noctis mentions it in his letters to Lunafreya, though. The one part-time he always indulged himself in, writing letters to his friend in Tenebrae and waiting for her reply – sometimes he and Ignis wrote them together, even. But he mentioned these strange nights to Luna, scared of whatever it could mean._

_She did her best trying to figure things out on her end, but she never came to a definitive conclusion. Not even asking Gentiana, a Messenger, yielded any results other than a frown on the pretty face and a slight shrug. Lunafreya apologised so profusely in the last letter they discussed this topic in that Noctis replied that it hadn’t happened again that month._

_He might as well put a skeleton in his closet for as long as his father slept, he figured._

_Noctis started wandering around at night, and ran into Ardyn several times. Whatever he was doing when he blacked out, it had to be similar to what the King was doing, and he was completely and utterly terrified. Several times they met as they wandered the halls, and when Noctis received that lance from him something in the back of his head shrieked in triumph. That weapon was important, somehow, and while he feared it at first it quickly became a relieving weight in his hands._

_When he turned sixteen he started to realise there was a correlation between the Wall’s rapid recline and his monthly episodes of complete blackouts at night. Maybe he was sleepwalking, somehow, and every time he did something happened to the Wall. It seemed extremely stupid, and finally he asked Kar for help._

_The Carbuncle listened with its large ears twitching gently, and Noctis swore he felt a burst of glimmering glee from Kar when he finished his story almost breathlessly. The Carbuncle then rolled up._

‘Can’t say I have an idea what this is about, but… if you go around telling Ardyn that he might throw you out. He’s tossed people out for less, Noct.’

 _Noctis put that skeleton back into his closet. Luna looked at him concernedly when she arrived at the Citadel and stayed, but eventually she was as tired as Ardyn was, and Noctis continued on clawing at his face every time he found himself having blacked out and somewhere he had not been before. He was definitely wandering around the Citadel, doing_ something _and as Kar had correctly said Ardyn had thrown people out for less. Noctis was terrified, both because he could lose his family and home again, and because he was starting to believe that whatever did not belong into the Citadel was_ using him _._

_Even after his father woke he never said anything._

_In fact, he stopped blacking out._

_His father, on the other hand, looked like he was losing sleep._

* * *

Noctis was staggering backwards, away from the lance, and stared at his own hands. It wasn’t hard to guess that someone had gotten themselves stabbed by the Seer. Ardyn just couldn’t figure out who it was to warrant such a reaction. The Seer was not one to turn his weapons on his friends and allies, he treasured their support too much for that. Still, something about that weapon tugged at the back of Ardyn’s mind – there was something he had forgotten about it in the long, long time he’d spent alive.

“Noctis.”

The poor boy nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard Ardyn’s voice, and staggered backwards some more. Ardyn started moving slowly, towards the lance.

“Stay away!”

Nothing happened, of course, and Ardyn slowly reached for the lance on the ground. The normally silver weapon was drenched in half-dry blood, so whoever had gotten themselves stabbed by Noctis was one, very badly injured, and two, possibly dead. The King did a quick tally of people he knew were inside the Citadel, and he narrowed his eyes.

The Seer was on his own. Where was Cor?

He rolled the lance over in his hand, like he had done in the past. Something didn’t add up here, and it had to do with how Noctis ended up _impaling_ someone. He rolled the lance again, and stopped dead.

It was a blessed weapon.

“Noctis! Where’s Cor?”

The Seer just made a pained noise and clutched his head. That was more than enough of an answer, and Ardyn dropped the lance like Noctis had before him. He moved slowly, his entire body barely obeyed his commands after all, but dragged himself over to Noctis. He put his hands on the Seer’s shoulders and shook him slightly.

“Where is Cor Leonis, Noct?”

‘ _Possibly bleeding out somewhere, but I’m afraid that just getting impaled won’t kill a Messenger quite yet, even with a blessed weapon.’_

A cheery voice, a familiar voice. Ardyn turned back around only to see a familiar creature sit on the Daemon that had been Verus Izunia in a hundred lifetimes past. The large ears flicked and he could nearly _see_ the face-splitting grin that Menda would have worn if she had a human face.

‘ _Too bad, honestly. Noctis was trained_ so well _, I had thought he would be better at offing an opponent. Oh well.’_

Noctis let out a whimper and buried his face in Ardyn’s back; not unlike the way he had clung to his fathers leg the day they arrived at the Citadel after Frontier fell. Ardyn, on the other hand, merely crossed his arms. Getting stabbed did not equal death, that much was true. And Cor was definitely not the kind of person to croak at the earliest convenience. No, Ardyn was quite certain that the Messenger was still alive inside the Citadel, and was not going to die any time soon; the only other blessed weapons in Insomnia were the Oracle’s trident and his royal arms. Neither he nor Lunafreya had a bone to pick with Cor, and the Oracle would more likely try to heal him. His identity as Messenger might come to light, but that was about all the danger Cor Leonis faced. After all, as he had learned, there was no way to kill a Messenger other than blessed weapons, and Daemons definitely did not wield blessed weapons.

It would make dealing with her harder in the end, but ultimately Cor was safe.

The Carbuncle hopped off the Daemon and shook herself.

‘ _You were so quick to claim Kar was a male Carbuncle. It made disguising myself all the more easy, especially with that ephemerally unheard voice. I’ll have to thank you for that, even if it took_ decades _for my cowardly relatives to get here. And then you nearly rained on my parade another time.’_

Noctis, behind Ardyn, dug his fingers into the older man’s back. The King himself simply stared, watched as Menda shook herself again in barely contained laughter.

‘ _No need to look so terrified, you weren’t born for anything other than slowly corrupting the Wall. None of these infernal Seers were, but it took 112, you and my lovely brother over yonder excluded, to finally get close enough to Ardyn. Have you ever spent millennia nearly unable to do anything because you can’t blow your cover?’_

“Corrupting the Wall.” He hadn’t meant to repeat what she had said, and she rolled over. It seemed absurd that this tiny creature was the same woman he’d seen oh so very gleefully bury arrow after arrow in Daemons and animals alike, but now that he listened closely it made sense. There was a similar snap in their voices, a similar pitch.

‘ _I mean, the Seers did it too. Titles, Ardyn. If you were an Izunia, you’d be Ardyn the Healer. The pretty boy behind you is Noctis the Last, and that abomination that’s playing dead like a well-trained dog is Verus the Accursed.’_ A low growl from behind the Carbuncle. _‘Too bad you broke my hold on him. It was nice finally being able to tell the stubborn oaf what to do. But anyway, I was and am the Corrupter. Hence, corrupting the Wall. Corrupting your own powers by healing me. Corrupting the boy so I get easier control over him._ That _sure backfired. But you were so very attached to him that you saved him, and made it harder to control him in the long run. Why do you think he spent his nights awake and slinking through the Citadel?’_

Noctis froze, but so did Ardyn.

‘ _Thousands of years until a generation finally moved their cowardly cadavers out of that village, and even then only because I finally managed to find a loophole and throw some Daemons through to raze the village.’_

“… _You’re_ the reason dad tossed me in the car and--”

‘ _Naturally. Who else?’_

Finally the Seer moved. So did the Daemon behind the Carbuncle. Ardyn remained frozen where he stood, and Menda simply laughed as she nearly _hopped_ back towards the Citadel. _‘_ _Well, unlike you guys I’ve got things to do.’_

A huff, and Ardyn finally turned around to look at the Seer. There was a dangerous glint in Noctis’ eyes as he picked up the lance Verus had carried. The blood was long since dry, a strangely dark pattern on the otherwise silver weapon, and Noctis straightened up.

“Orders are orders, Your Highness.”

With that, he followed the Carbuncle, and Ardyn still found himself unable to move. He needed to stop that foolish child, he had no business fighting his distant ancestor’s sister like this, especially not being upset like he was and apparently _controllable_ by her, but not even a single sound escaped his throat as he watched Noctis hurry back into the Citadel.

* * *

_He learned of it during a warm summer day. Aressa was six years old, running around the village with some other children, and all of a sudden his head felt like it was about to burst. A hammering headache, like the devil knocking on a door, and Izunia croaked out something before he collapsed._

_When he woke again he stood in the middle of the village, in the evening, and one of the residents thanked him for his help. He had no recollection of what happened between the moment he collapsed and now, and stared after the villager for a while. He could feel his heartbeat accelerating as he approached his home, but Aressa’s just asleep on the table inside. He went to pick up his sleeping daughter and carefully made sure he would not wake her on accident._

_When he entered her room, he nearly dropped her. On the windowsill sat a gleaming creature just about the size of a small dog, with long ears that twitched in amusement. Izunia felt the haze returning to his head, and he quickly made a beeline for Aressa’s bed just to make sure he did not drop his daughter._

“ _Not in this room. Leave her out of this.”_

‘Oh, but she’s part of the presentation.’

_It felt like he was watching the world through a muddy window, and he watched in silent terror as his daughter got up slowly with perfectly blank eyes. Once the immediate terror passed he dropped to his knees and grabbed his daughter by her shoulders, to make sure she would not move any further._

“ _Leave her out of this, Menda! It’s me and Ardyn you have an issue with; Aressa’s innocent!”_

_All he got was a giggle, and Aressa shoved his hands off. She was staring at the window with her blank eyes, as if awaiting an order, and Izunia’s heart skipped several beats._

“ _Menda,” he croaked out, but the unwelcome guest stared at his daughter instead._

‘You’re just puppets with extended strings; you’re still a first-born.’

“ _I know that, but I don’t get what you want from me!” He wrapped his arms around his daughter once more and stared at the creature sitting on the windowsill. The Carbuncle merely swiped a paw over one of its ears and giggled again._

‘I could toss you against him before he could even order you executed, you know. Imagine that scene it would cause, Verus Izunia returning with his puh-retty little spear and trying to impale the King and his Messenger Marshal both. How far would you get, I wonder?’

_Aressa was struggling against his grasp, clawing at his arms with a low hiss. A hiss Izunia had heard hundreds, billions of times in his life. The low hiss of a child turning into a Daemon, and he swore he thought he would die on the spot. Aressa still looked the same, with her clear blue eyes completely blank, like a deep mirror. But she was hissing and scratching him like a rabid cat, and he was just staring at the creature at the window._

‘Ah, but that would be boring.’

“ _What… what do you… want…? I’ve… I already lost everything trying to… trying to cover up for you. Like when we were children.”_

‘Aye, you’ve lost quite a lot. But _everything_? Don’t be ridiculous. Alas… there’s someone who could use losing something, if not everything. Did you know he refused his fate and turned around?’

_He had guessed that much. The fate of the Chosen was a tale that most children in this age knew, and a tale that Ardyn repeatedly claimed had no correlation with what he was doing. It wasn’t until the Hexathon themselves told him what his duty was that he accepted that much, and Izunia had repeatedly regretted being the one person to tell Ardyn that there was no point in heroic deaths just to save people._

_Losing one person could be worse than eternal damnation, after all; and Izunia knew that feeling now._

‘Ponder on it for a while. I’d say you have about nine years left before you turn into a Daemon yourself. Maybe then you’ll be willing to listen – ah, but who knows, maybe you’ll not even have your free mind once you turn. Just make sure you don’t turn your precious little daughter into mincemeat when you turn. You’ll know where to find me, and I’ll know where to find you. We are, after all, the last people carrying Ifrit’s blessing, much like your little gem there.’

_He watched as the creature that was his sister in disguise hopped out of the window, and the wind made the curtains in Aressa’s room sway gently. For a solid minute he heard nothing but his laboured breathing and his heart beating loudly, and then Aressa groaned slightly in his arms. Reality came back to him, and he was aware of the terrible sting that ran up his arms when she put her hands on them._

“… _Papa, you’re bleeding.”_

“… _Tried to hold… neighbour’s cat. Was… was punished for my… hubris.”_

_She also turned to look at the window, and a deep shudder ran through the little girl._

“… _Papa?”_

“…” _He finally snapped his attention back to his daughter, and she looked at him with wide eyes._

“… _Can I sleep with you tonight? I don’t… I don’t wanna be on my own. Or at least not in this room.”_

“… _Of course, sweetheart.”_

_She never slept in that room again after that. Neither of them really touched it until the morning after Aressa awoke as the only person in the house._

* * *

“ _She’s… going to come back before long.”_

“...”

“ _You’re worried about Noctis.”_

It seemed odd to speak to a Daemon, especially once that had Izunia’s voice, but all things considered it wasn’t the strangest thing Ardyn had done in his long life. He had done a fair share of strange and downright stupid things, egged on by Verus and Menda when he was younger and _mortal_ , or had Cor to clean up his messes after him as he battled with immortality and learned to live with it. But Noctis… Noctis was mortal. A mortal child coiled up in mistakes he had made in the past; mistakes dire enough that a vengeful spirit had haunted his entire regency and had brought back people he had long considered dead and gone.

One such person just so happened to be a human-turned-Daemon that nudged him slightly, and Ardyn stumbled.

“ _Normally you’re the first one to go when you smell danger. What are you standing around for, Ardyn? You can still catch up even with your limp if you go_ now _, you bumbling fool.”_

“… Don’t you normally follow me blindly when I dash head-first into danger?”

A shrug, and Ardyn wished he could see Izunia’s actual face instead of the grotesque maw of a Daemon. There was no hope for the already turned, though, other than…

He shuddered.

He’d told Cor that he would be ready in case it came to it, but now that there was the possibility of having to actually take the throne he was promised by the Six, he found himself wavering again. There were so many things that could go wrong, and the fact that he was corrupted remained. If he wavered during that process, would he doom the entire world to turn into Daemons left to roam and tear the vegetation apart until nothing but wasteland remained?

He was still limping, but his body was starting to obey his commands again, and he followed Noctis into the Citadel. There were several ways Noctis could have gone trying to chase down Menda, of course, and Ardyn stopped again in the entrance hall. Somewhere on the upper floors he heard what sounded like Iris tearing up a Daemon for a split second, but the sound faded nearly immediately.

It had been so many years that Ardyn had long since lost count, but it was both relieving and unsettling to know that somewhere behind him was Izunia. Cor and Izunia both had always been there whenever he got into trouble, and somehow always pulled through for him – now Cor was somewhere in here grievously injured, and Izunia was a Daemon. Ardyn, on the other hand, was still the same person, mostly.

The elevators were out of commission. He stared at the stairs for a good minute before Izunia sighed.

“ _Fine then.”_

“Fine wh-- What are you doing!”

He’d gotten lifted up, not by his scarf as he was used to by now, but he was still being carried up the stairs. It was so completely absurd that Ardyn couldn’t even say anything until they reached a floor only to be greeted by other Daemons. Ardyn was set down on the ground carefully, and the Daemons scattered.

“What on Eos!”

“ _You looked at the stairs as if they were going to grow teeth and kill you, so I carried you. Duh.”_

“You’re terrible!”

“ _I know.”_

That answer sounded more sullen than it was supposed to sound like, and Ardyn immediately sobered up. This definitely was not the time to fall back into old habits, especially not with a small mob gathering somewhere to the right. Ardyn took a deep breath and pulled his crossbow out of the Armiger. Just a few bolts should be enough to take care of these critters, but before he could even properly load the weapon they scattered again.

That was not something Daemons did normally.

Which meant that something was going on on this floor, and Ardyn looked down the hallway. That was the hallway that led to…

“ _The throne-- Ardyn!”_

Despite the claws and everything, Izunia managed to shove him without even doing as much as tearing into the coat. Ardyn stumbled to the side, and crashed into the wall. His body howled in protest once more, and his leg almost gave in, but he managed to catch his balance before he slid to the ground. He heard a terrible crunching noise followed by several stomps and a low grunt. Then someone else sighed.

“Well. Do me a favour and _die_ this time, Verus.”

The King finally turned his head around, just in time to see a familiar person marching off. She looked mildly inconvenienced at best, and carried Noctis’ lance.

Izunia was on the ground.

Despite the searing pain in his hip he dragged himself over, slumped down next to the Daemon. He sat in a puddle of familiar black ooze, and slowly reached out with a shaky hand. He’d done it before, he could do it again. Wounds closing like they had never existed, leaving nothing but a very fine, thin scar. He took a deep breath and tried calling on his power.

“ _Don’t.”_

Ardyn dropped the arm.

“ _Told you not to kill yourself for me.”_

“Your point?! You… you saved my life there, I can’t just--”

“ _You can. You’ve done it before.”_ Even though it was still the growl of a Daemon not unlike the ones laughing in the back of his head, the voice sounded surprisingly gentle. _“Not that I blame you for it. Should’ve said something, anything, instead of… accepting it. I’m… I’m sorry.”_

Ardyn curled his hands into fists. There were many things he wanted to say, ranging from screaming at him to breaking into tears, but all that he managed to say was a simple “Idiot.”

“ _Go. Stop her.”_

“And how? She’s essentially a Messenger running amok in my city, in my castle.”

“… _She’s a… Daemon, Ardyn.”_

He hadn’t considered that. But Ifrit’s blessing, when it came down to it, was what was nowadays considered the Starscourge. Something he had been given the power to heal, back when he was born. Something that the rest of the Hexathon had offered him to completely purge from the planet without a trace.

“… I get it, Verus, I get it now.”

“ _...”_

Ardyn ignored the pain and slowly dragged himself up. He had to basically lean against the walls as he moved forward painfully slowly. Up ahead the sounds of a skirmish had started, and he couldn’t make out who exactly it was who was fighting each other. The blood roared in his ears and the Daemons in the back of his head.

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t get an answer.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter's been sliced in half-ish. The next half will come when I finish that, ofc.
> 
> Another thing of note here is, I managed to unearth the remainders of my terrible depression-induced writer's block that held me in a stranglehold since... hm, 2015? Late 2014? Something like that.  
> So it's been quite a fight to put out something that wasnt a) German b) frustrating to me personally while still trying to get what I had planned.  
> It worked out, more or less, mostly thanks to jonphaedrus, thetealord and Jamie's support.
> 
> Other half coming. Soonish? Maybe before raiding tonight? Who knows.

_A hundred, a thousand years, and he was quite certain he would never get over how terrified Seers looked whenever they had a vision. From all those faceless predecessors the kid had including the two whose face he knew, to the father and this very child, it just were over a hundred pairs of round and wide eyes, rimmed with red, staring at him in silent terror._

_This one, though, looked at him with silent determination. He had made a promise to learn how to control the power to change fate, and had been rather studious to boot._

_A few months, and Ardyn started to enjoy those little lessons of how to control magic and visions. The boy was a joy to have around, and even though he lacked the skill to quickly internalise everything he was taught, there was a certain energy to him that even seemed to carry over to the Immortal King._

_You seem to be in an awfully good mood despite the burn on your face._

_Ardyn merely hummed and leaned against the Messenger with a grin. Cor looked like he had bitten into something sour for a second, then decided it would be better for one of his trademark sighs._

_You do know this is a recipe for chaos._

“ _From the moment I became the current healer in Lucis it has been nothing but a recipe for destruction and chaos, Cor Leonis.” His voice was almost infuriatingly bouncy, but the King merely grinned wider. “Let me have this, for once.”_

_I am not trying to police your good mood._

“ _You sound like it, spoilsport!”_

_I just--_

“ _Want to make certain I don’t get attached, as usual.”_

_He’s mortal. You’re a Daemon. Not to mention the past ‘issues’ you had with his kind._

_Suddenly the smile was gone, replaced by a grim but unusually determined expression. “I know that, Cor. Still, fate saw it fit to deliver him here, and I shall make certain he at least gets someone treating him like a human being before being a Seer. I’ve seen those looks from you and the rest of the Citadel staff, especially since the… Scientia incident. Other than Ignis most people here seem to be afraid of Noctis – a completely unfounded and baffling fear, because he is certainly the sweetest and gentlest child I have ever had the pleasure of working with, the whole being able to use magic and seeing death thing aside. He is mortal, yes; doesn’t that mean I as an immortal should make certain his limited time is as pleasant as it can possibly be with the circumstances of his arrival here in Insomnia?”_

_No reply from the Messenger, but his expression said everything. He agreed, for once, and Ardyn noticed with triumph that Cor simply was unable or unwilling to agree as usual._

“ _Glad to see we spoke about this.”_

_Wait. Just one thing. Getting attached, fine. Getting_ too _attached will ruin you when his time is inevitably up._

“ _Not to worry, that won’t be the case.”_

_It was a bold lie, but one that came over his lips so easily that even Ardyn had to ponder on it later in the dark. But just the next day Noctis managed to fully control a spell he cast, and the boy’s sheer unfiltered joy and pride made the Immortal King smile. He knew he was already terribly attached to the kid, and there was no backing out of that now. It was with a smile and a slight fear stirring in his heart that he watched Noctis bounce around with pride as he held that small flame in his tiny palms just as the King held a much larger one in his. Maybe Cor was right and he was inviting a danger about to stir up chaos into the heart of the country he had held together in the long, long years of his reign._

_That fear melted when the kid grabbed him by the other arm and buried his face in it. At least Noctis had put out the flame in his hands before he did that._

“ _Thank you, thank you, Sir!”_

_Ardyn quenched the flame in his other hand and leaned over a little to ruffle the kids’ hair. The boy giggled as he did that, and Ardyn swore part of the Wall could’ve melted right there and he wouldn’t have cared that much._

“ _No need to call me Sir. Just call me Ardyn, Noctis.”_

* * *

It was never truly dark in the Kingdom of Lucis. Spanning across the Crown City of Insomnia and the Leide, Cleigne and Duscae regions was what people there called the Wall, a magical shield that lit up the night with its eerie glow. At least it had spanned across the country until it started collapsing in parts, vanished in others, and retracted further and further until it only encompassed Insomnia.

His head hurt and he was aware of the dull throbbing pain as he opened one eye slightly. Someone called his name, then another name, and Noctis didn’t make anything else out. His entire body felt numb, and he closed the eye again. One of the people around here was shaking his shoulder at this point, and the throbbing pain turned into a hammering headache. It felt like something was missing, and he breathed in slowly.

Finally the screeching in his ears stopped, and he managed to make out words. Ignis was explaining something to Lunafreya. She didn’t say anything in return, and Noctis slowly opened his eyes.

Several sets of eyes were upon him, and all of them, from Iris to Nyx looked concerned but relieved that he was awake.

“You’re… correct, Ignis. Your fading sight was not playing tricks on you there.” Lunafreya got down on her knees and put one of her hands on Noctis’ cheek. “His eyes are red. That normally is the sign of a vision, correct?”

Noctis blinked while Ignis confirmed what Luna had said – everything felt like it was still going in slow-motion. He only just realised that the sun was rising, nothing more than a faint light that seeped into the Citadel. Lunafreya let go of his cheek and turned around to explain something to Gladiolus, Iris and Nyx.

He blinked again. Dragged himself up on the wall. Stopped dead.

“Ignis… Luna… where’s...”

“… We don’t know, Noctis. We only just found you about an hour ago. Your father and Aranea are further downstairs with a couple of servants, though. Please, you should really sit back down again, your eyes are still bright red from the aftershock of a vision--”

He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t have a vision, Luna.”

They all paused and looked at the Seer. For years all of them had learned that red eyes were a sign of Noctis being particularly shaken after seeing someone die, and that it was a time of letting him recompose himself before he did something stupid or broke down in guilt. Noctis, on the other hand, walked over to a window and stared into it. Indeed, what little he could see of his reflection in there showed that his eyes were red, but not as brightly as they usually were when he saw. Just a dull red, which could perhaps pass for a strange brown if someone didn’t look closely enough. Still, it was a strange thing to look at, after years of being told how blue his eyes were when they weren’t bright red.

“If you didn’t have a vision, though,” Nyx began somewhere behind him, “what’s that supposed to mean, Noct?”

“… I don’t have a clue.”

The Wall outside was still gone. There was no strange flickering in the air as it spanned the sky, and Noctis just barely remembered the way it shattered mere hours ago. Like glass raining from the sky, but fading before it ever reached the ground, and nothing of it remained. Yet, something was glittering in the air, not unlike the pieces of the Wall had. Iris exclaimed the selfsame thing behind him now, saying that something was glittering in the air, and all of them walked over to the window Noctis stood at.

The Wall was gone. Suddenly the headache came back, hammering against his head, and Noctis winced and put both hands against his temples. Something was missing here, some _one_ was missing here. Like a ghost that haunted them, usually. A ghost Noctis had...

“Luna. Luna, where’s the Marshal? The King?”

Finally the Oracle tensed up a little.

“We stopped looking for other people once we found you. You were out cold, Noctis, we feared you were… dead.”

His heart skipped a beat.

They wouldn’t know, of course. And maybe Cor wasn’t as dead as he thought he would be, and Noctis inhaled slowly.

“I… I need to… check something. Go back downstairs.”

* * *

_Maybe in another life he’d be the one waiting at the end of that hallway, waiting for some unfortunate kid that the Astrals had deemed worthy to be their glorified sacrifice to get rid of ancient Sol sins. Maybe that person would walk upright instead of hunched over and dragging themselves along the wall just to not drop to their feet and scream, but Ardyn carried on regardless. He rarely stopped once he started going, and every single person that had ever spent more than a few years with him called that his worst characteristic._

_Countless Amicitias had said so, Izunia had often and breathlessly complained about how unerringly he carried on once he set his stubborn mind on something. Cor on the other hand groaned about it every other century, often before he vanished for a few years and came back once people forgot about him and his seemingly never ageing face. He half expected the Messenger to appear at his side, offer him an arm and begrudgingly half-drag, half-carry him where he needed to go._

_The only thing that kept Ardyn company right now was the clanging of a brawl further ahead. At least the stiffness was leaving his body at this point – the Wall was gone, and with it most of his powers by now – but he was still dragging one of his legs behind._

_Even the normally familiar voices of the countless Daemons he absorbed all this time ago had fallen silent. It was that silence that scared him more than anything else, for he had long since gotten used to some sort of chattering and clattering and screeching whenever he did something, anything at all. And even if these creatures were not complaining, it was at least one living person that complained on their behalf, questioned everything he did. Maybe even some Amicitia ridiculing him for dragging himself along like that would have made him shake less, but there was nothing, no one._

_Just that hallway – even the brawling sounds from up ahead stopped, and all that remained was the low gurgle of a Daemon meeting its end from both ahead and from behind._

* * *

Taking these stairs up was harder than Noctis imagined them to be. His head still throbbed from when he had been tossed against the wall and kicked in the head, and there was an uneasy feeling further amplifying that pain. The world was spinning and he slowly trudged onwards and upwards – there was something he needed to know, but nearly doubling over backwards and falling down the stairs was not worth that grief. He stopped there, ready to turn around, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Warm and comforting as always.

“I tried, Noct, the elevator’s not working. The others went back downstairs to make certain the servants are alright and still in one piece, as you told them to.”

“… And you didn’t go, because?”

“… I had a feeling you might need a hand with these stairs. Your voice was higher than usual, which implies that you are not feeling quite well. Since you definitely have not caught a cold but were found out cold, rather, I put one and one together and realised you would be feeling under the weather, perhaps dizzy, from whatever hit you took that knocked you out.”

“I’m just dizzy, Ignis. And as much as I love you, you’re not much help on a staircase nowadays.”

“Touché. But we can try dragging each other upstairs anyway. It’s not like we are strangers to dragging each other along whenever neither Marshal nor King are around to do the dragging for us.”

Noctis swallowed hard and nodded, uncertain of what to say next. The familiar air between him and Ignis had calmed his heartbeat for a little, but now it was picking up in pace again. They slowly ascended, going step by step. It was just like when they were kids, slowly slinking around places of the Citadel that adults had declared off-limits because of some important meeting taking place and that the equally important people and the King were not to be disturbed under any circumstance. So naturally two children left to their own devices would sneak around just to find a way to go around the people standing watch and Clarus Amicitia, just to show that there was nothing that would ever hold them back other than locked doors.

Except this time they were, essentially, grown men, there were no guards and certainly no Clarus Amicitia all the way up here – there were only three, maybe four people further up. No foreign merchants of import, no royals, no military leaders. Just the Immortal King, the Marshal and… the King’s Carbuncle.

All those times they’d just tossed Kar around, all the times the King had to scold them for being too rough on the summon that was actually a centuries old vengeful spirit in disguise. If they’d only had the guts to be rougher, maybe the whole jig would have been up before it was too late, if they had only realised something, anything…

But Kar had always just been Kar, just as the King had always just been King.

When they finally reached the end of the stairs, Noctis stopped dead and tensed up. Even Ignis stopped with a soft noise of confusion, though that scene did not have as much of an impact on him than it had on Noctis.

There was black blood everywhere, and in the middle of that pool just lay the man Noctis had seen nearly five years ago in his dreams, the Daemon that had taken him through the dream’s Frontier. The Seer who had been friends with the King, the man who had gotten himself and every single Seer after him banished from the more populated regions of Lucis.

It wasn’t the fact that he was dead that was unsettling Noctis enough that even Ignis noticed how shallow the Seer’s breathing became. No, if anything Noctis was grateful that hundreds of years of trying to fix what he had done were over.

It was the fact that he looked perfectly human that unsettled Noctis. He’d seen Izunia just a few hours ago, looking nothing like the corpse sprawled in the middle of that black pool. Daemons normally didn’t return to human forms and instead vanished after a few hours after being slain.

“Who even--” Ignis began, but Noctis grabbed the other’s arm and dug his fingers into it. “Noct?”

“That man was a Daemon just a few hours ago, Iggy. He shouldn’t be here, let alone be… human.”

The dice fell, apparently, since Ignis inhaled sharply. “He wouldn’t have…!”

“I… I doubt it, maybe he just used his powers up right there to let him die as human, but…”

They both looked down the hallway.

* * *

_The room before the throne room. Its floor and walls were almost kept pristinely gleaming, free of any dust or specks of dirt, mostly to resemble the glow of the Crystal that was hoisted above the throne just beyond a door. There were pictures of parts of the Cosmogony on the walls, partially hidden behind pillars. Some Amicitias, Scientias and Cor had asked why these pillars were placed like this, half obscuring the marvellous images just behind that._

_Ardyn never answered them, but it was partially out of spite. The fate of the Healer, of the Chosen Healer, was to die so ancient Sol sins could be purged once and for all. He had never considered dying an option, especially not after nearly dying in Insomnia._

_The room was anything but pristinely clean now, though. There were sizzling and hissing heaps of Daemons as they died out. One of the pictures had gotten knocked down as if a strong gust had swept through the room, another few were charred. Indeed, several things were charred as if a fire had blazed in here and had been half-heartedly put out. A shattered sword was scattered on the floor alongside broken windows and vases, toppled over furniture._

_Ardyn slowly staggered through this room and dropped to his knees beside Cor. The Messenger was lying face down nearly in the middle of the room, with Verus’ lance stuck in his back. There were splatters of black and red blood, with a black trail leading into the throne room, and there was soot dancing in the air._

_Somehow the Messenger was still drawing breath, although very slowly, and Ardyn put his hands on Cor’s back._

_You…_

“ _Shh.”_

_Ironically enough, even Cor would have refused being healed, and Ardyn knew that. Most people here would have refused being healed out of stubborn pride or the fact that they knew it could kill the King. Cor Leonis was one of the latter and just ever so slightly he shook his head. Anyone else would have missed that motion, but Ardyn caught it and sighed._

_Don’t bother._

“ _It’s not like you would let me, even if you still had the strength to push me away to stop me from healing.”_

_You know me… so well._

_The King snorted, but it was not a happy snort. He felt uncomfortably reminded of the day Serena died; with a long-time partner just up and leaving him all on his own again. The difference between the Chocobo and the Messenger was that the Chocobo had gone in peace. Cor looked anything but peaceful at this moment – he looked kind of haunted through the daze he was in, and Ardyn gently pat the Messenger’s back._

“ _You fought and you lost. But you injured her, judging from… well, everything.”_

_Lost again… to an Izunia. Died as mortal losing to one… am dying as Messenger because of one._

“ _More sarcastic people would call that a book end for you.”_

_Cor laughed silently, and Ardyn curled his hands on the man’s back into fists. They had been King and Messenger, certainly, and disagreed more often than not, but this was wrong. Ardyn had always thought Cor would outlive the apocalypse and drink tea together with his fellow Messengers as Eos burned away to rise anew._

_Instead it was a blessed weapon, one that even was in Insomnia simply because Ardyn was a sentimental fool at best and an old moron at worst, and he put one hand on the lance. Cor let out a wheeze of pain, though even that was quieter than the laugh before._

_Throne room._

“ _I know she went in there. You injured her, and I sincerely doubt that all that black blood on the ground came from you or the Daemons that might have been in here before.2_

_You might have… to…_

“ _I will have to, Cor, I will have to.”_

… _?_

_He sighed and put his other hand on the lance. “Remember Ravus’ request for aid, years ago? The Daemons that got washed over from Accordo? The fact that even the current Aldercapt made threats when he wasn’t busy playing Frankenstein with his MTs? There’s Daemons from all over Eos, and they’re bound for Lucis. Who knows how far in they are. Even if we take out… the Corrupter, there’s still… that writhing mass. I will not have Lucis mobilise for a war they can’t possibly win. Mortals against Daemons? Even groups of experienced hunters can lose against a single one if things go wrong.”_

… _Ah._

_This time it was Ardyn who laughed, a completely joyless sound and he fastened his grip on the lance. He was shaking again and his voice was breaking when he continued. “Afraid to say so, but even though you succeeded in your God-given mission of preparing me for this, you might not get rid of me even in death. You’re just a few steps ahead of me.”_

_I wouldn’t… want it any other way. You… get used to… eccentric arseholes after… a few hundred years…_

“ _That’s one of the top ten compliments I’ve ever received in my life.”_

_Not a… compliment._

“ _Still one of the nicer things you’ve uttered. Thank you, Messenger Cor Leonis; I shall do as Bahamut commands.”_

_Careful. She’s… in there._

“ _Don’t worry.” The King took a deep breath and cracked a small smile. “See you on the other side.”_

_It could have been a laugh, a sigh, or something else entirely, but Ardyn never got to ask what exactly that was. Cor exhaled slowly and stopped moving entirely. Ardyn finally yanked the lance out of the Messenger’s back with a grim expression and a silent apology on his lips, then turned to look at the door to the throne room._

* * *

The room was completely and utterly wrecked, and the both of them had to stop and just stare at it for a few seconds. They hadn’t expected that kind of chaos, especially not after being so used to it being clean and orderly. As children they had avoided this room, and even as teenagers they had preferred being anywhere but there. The pictures that hung there were in essentially every copy of the Cosmogony anyway, and there was no point in trying to sneak around the throne room anyway; Noctis could count the times he had been there on both hands. And most of these visits had been because Gladiolus and Iris needed something from their father, who usually stood guard around here whenever the King was in one of his moods.

Still, this looked nothing like the room he’d spoken to Clarus Amicitia and his children in several times, and it took Noctis several heartbeats to even notice the Marshal lying on the ground.

“Oh no… No, no, no...”

He rushed over, skidding across the floor a little as he dropped to his knees, but he already knew there was nothing to be done.

“Ignis! Help me!”

Ignis, on the other hand, came over surprisingly slowly. His shoes clicked on the ground and on the shattered glass that was scattered all over the room, and he looked at the door leading to the throne room for a moment before finally crouching down next to Noctis.

“Noct.”

Normally a hand on his shoulder would have calmed the Seer down, but right now it only made him cringe – which Ignis, of course, noticed and narrowed his eyes at. Noctis breathed in slowly and went to check for what killed the Marshal. Ignis squinted and tried to see what Noctis was doing and tilted his head slightly when Noctis turned the Marshal around and let out a relieved sigh.

“He definitely… didn’t bleed to death.”

“He’s still dead, Noct.”

“Yeah, but…” Before he even finished that thought he realised how bewildering his relief at Cor Leonis not bleeding to death must have been, if not downright creepy. Noctis hiccuped slightly and tensed up. “… How much can you see of this mess?”

“Enough to see whatever you’re trying to point out, most likely.”

He took a deep breath before continuing. “That… wound. Not the one that killed him in the end, but the other. That was… that was me. I mean, technically me.”

“ _Technically_ you?”

Noctis closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. Ignis’ hand was still on his shoulder, and all the older did was gently pat the Seer’s back.

“I… I lost control over my own body. _Someone else_ took over, and when I managed to see through my own eyes again I just… saw I had _run the Marshal through_. Which, apparently, happened to _every Seer before me_. Well, maybe not the running Cor Leonis through, but the… whole… being controlled part.” Another deep breath and he looked at Ignis through his fingers. “The one who helped in slowly destroying the Wall was _me_ , Ignis. It was me. And the one who did the controlling? Gods-damned _Kar_. I assisted a vengeful creature that had been in here as long as the King had with finally taking down the Wall. Even though my father came here to make certain it _wouldn’t break_ as it had back in Frontier. Yet he delivered me here, and… and...”

The broken glass glittered on the floor as the sun finally peeked over the skyscrapers of Insomnia. Outside, as if echoing that very glitter that nearly blinded Noctis, the air seemingly sparkled as well. Though that glimmer had since started to die down, leaving nothing but the broken glass and the Seer behind – he caught a reflection of his own eyes, which were still a dull red rather than the clear blue he was long since used to. It reminded him of blood, and Noctis choked.

Ignis simply pulled him into a silent hug, and they stayed there for about a minute before a familiar dread settled in the back of Noctis’ head. Surprisingly enough, it was Ignis who cleared his throat.

“The King. Is the King in this room, Noctis?”

“… No.”

Which left only the throne room, unless Ardyn had decided to jump out of a window.

The air outside sparkled as the sun shone.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "before raiding", she croaks. "before raiding," she groans, posting the latter half at 7am, somehow still unable to sleep.

_Almost as soon as he opened the door an arrow shot past him, burying itself into the wall all across the room. He heard a low curse followed by a hiss that apparently came through clenched teeth, and Ardyn simply swept into the room in the most fluid and uncaring motion he could muster up. He’d spent about five minutes just leaning against the door with his fists curled before finally opening it – he’d considered turning around and running when the world around him at long last stopped spinning, but that would have been just about as cowardly as raising a Wall and keeping the other countries out of the Daemon-less experience. And Ardyn Lucis Caelum decided he was done playing the coward hiding behind a magically conjured-up wall by now. Thus he simply raised a hand in greeting at the woman leaning against the throne with her free hand trying to cover up her torn side after desummoning the bloody lance in his hands._

“ _You’ve been better at aiming in the past. What happened, Menda? Did you get rusty? Or did you get used to tiny tiny paws skittering across the floor as children chased you?”_

_He was already reaching out to his trusty royal crossbow; it was just a matter of time until she would shoot at him again._

“ _Children pulling you up by your legs, laughing as they tossed you on a chandelier… How did you ever manage to not lose your mind? You were always so impatient.”_

“ _Centuries do that to you, Ardyn. You mellow down, especially while waiting. Not to mention I got my fair share of little Specs.”_

“ _Ah yes, playing the picky house cat that had a favourite household member and scratched everyone else.”_

_She grimaced at him and straightened up a little, her hand finally dropping off what looked like an incorrectly aimed stab that missed her vital organs just barely. Still, it was enough to be a nuisance, and he silently thanked Cor for what might just be an opening._

“ _At least you bled red back when you died.”_

“ _Wouldn’t that have been awkward. Thank you most humbly for that, Your Majesty – it would have been black were it not for you and my brother meddling.”_

“ _Speaking of your brother, there is one thing I do not understand.”_

_He could see that Menda Izunia narrowed her eyes while reaching for an arrow. He finally pulled the crossbow out of the Armiger, and dropped his arm loosely at his side._

“ _Thinking back on it, he always only spoke of you with naught but the love of an elder sibling, even after you… died, for a lack of better word. Yet you never once were remotely nice to him.”_

“ _You never asked him about that?”_

“ _I have, but never quite got an answer out of him. According to what he said, and what his daughter wrote, though, you must have returned that feeling at some point. Enough to defy even your own mother.”_

_She shrugged. “No records of a first-born living longer than 20 since the time our entire line was cursed.”_

“ _Wouldn’t that have meant that the curse was weakening?”_

_A pause. He could hear her breathing in slowly before she stomped her foot against the throne._

“ _Perhaps so,” there was a strange, guttural growl in her voice and she pushed her mousy brown hair out of her face, “but nevertheless, it posed a problem. Ancient blessings never quite worked like modern ones did, and after yours there were none other than the ones bestowed upon Oracles. Modern blessings fully strengthen the person they are given to, and give even power enough to ward or strengthen their offspring. Ancient blessings like the one on Verus and my bloodline split the power between the offspring. To fully claim the blessing--”_

“ _The others who bore it had to die. The curses took care of the brothers, and...”_

“ _The mothers died at the hands of the daughters. Alas, Verus would not budge. Couldn’t exactly snipe him on accident with you around.”_

_Ardyn extended his arms. “You had six years before I even arrived on the scene by pulling him out of the lake, Menda. Six entire years – according to what he told me, you harmed not even a hair on his head in that time. If you asked me, that sounds,” he tilted his head and cracked a smile before phasing out of the path of an arrow, “as if you cared enough about him to not want him dead. Sure, you started to regret the choice of having your brother around at around the time your powers should have manifested and instead just started turning into a Daemon, but you decided you wanted him around more than you wanted whatever your mother promised you.”_

_There was one downside to finally knowing who had been behind this – Menda and he knew how the other fought. Especially since they both usually used long-range weapons. Ardyn was exhausted, Menda injured. Bolts and arrows missed their targets and simply dug into the walls of the throne room with dull thuds. They were both with their backs to a wall, and arrows and bolts lined which ways they went. Ardyn grimaced when one of his bolts flicked off the Crystal – Bahamut would most likely take over Cor’s job and chew his ears off._

_He narrowly avoided another arrow, and the two of them bent over to take a deep breath at the same time._

“ _All those years – for what?”_

“ _My birthright.”_

“ _You’ve had hundreds and thousands of years to simply get a blessed weapon and stab me in the back with it and watch the Wall immediately shatter while I was asleep. Why go through all that trouble?”_

“ _Daemons don’t sleep. Neither do you, Ardyn. Nor do I. Hell, it never would have been dark enough to creep up on the oh-so-praised Immortal King with a weapon. You know what was the worst about your Wall? There weren’t any stars left to see. It made these nights so terribly dark despite the fact it was never truly without light.”_

_He had spent some nights thinking the same thing. She was correct, he technically did not sleep. He certainly pretended to, but some nights he found himself staring out of the window or sitting on the roof and staring at the Wall. It kept him calm, of course, but it certainly also blocked out starlight. As someone who had travelled Lucis on foot he had experienced both the terrors and the serenity of night; either fighting off Daemons or simply watching the stars while lounging around a Haven._

“ _So why not make both our sleepless nights better again? Granted, there won’t be much left in your_ glorious _city once the Daemons arrive.”_

_Daemons._

_Something in the back of his mind clicked. This situation was familiar, even if it had happened a few years ago. A chatty Daemon, an exhausted King – it just wasn’t the same room. His eyes widened a little when he realised that this was one way to end this fight before he would have to fight someone much better in longer-lasting fights even with injuries than him._

_Menda on the other hand simply sighed._

_It was just a few seconds, but it was enough of an opening for Ardyn. He narrowed his eyes at her, leaned backwards a little before lurching forward--_

_He warped._

_It was such a simple trick, one that had miraculously worked against Noctis due to the kid not knowing Ardyn could do that, most likely. Menda, on the other hand, should have known better, and it was with a surprised yelp that she toppled over when his weight suddenly crashed into her. Static fizzled through the air as Ardyn caught his breath again and stared down at the archer._

_Her blue eyes were wide in surprise as he pinned her to the ground; she wasn’t even breathing for a solid few seconds before breaking into shrill laughter. It echoed in the empty throne room._

“ _You have_ got _to be_ kidding _me!”_

“ _Seeing as you’re on the ground, no.”_

_He caught a familiar sparkle out of the corner of his eyes and growled at her._

“ _Set this room on fire for all I care, but you got outdone by a trick you should know by heart.”_

_The sparkle vanished and she moved slightly while still laughing. “I’d have expected you to blow a hole in me, not tackle me to the ground.”_

“ _I’m full of surprises lately, aren’t I.”_

“ _Surprises? You’re still full of shit, Ardyn Lucis Caelum.”_

_He grinned, exhaustion slowly setting back in, and he knew this meant he would be losing his human features again. Not that he minded it much in this particular situation; mostly because she already knew what it looked like._

_Indeed, there was no change in expression as she stared up at him, only a slight disgust which had always been one of her more prominent features crept over her face._

“ _Correction, full of Daemons.”_

“ _Which amounts to a rather enormous mass of shit in the end, so you are quite correct.” He kicked her bow away and got off her, dragging himself upwards on the throne next to him. Menda, on the other hand, sat up and crossed her legs. Which was, as far as he remembered, her admitting defeat – remaining calm and not scrambling for a weapon. It was how people had said she went down, first fighting furiously and then silently accepting the fact a Daemon had just run her through and there were more coming._

_He pointed the crossbow at her._

“ _Was this really worth it? You took down the Wall, certainly, and killed a_ Messenger, _but… what else were you hoping to gain here?”_

_She shrugged. “Ash where once burned a fire. I was told to burn down and corrupt so someone could reignite the fire later, once the earth recovered. It wouldn’t let me go, not even in death. Heavens know I tried, but much as you constantly regenerate through your impure blood and the fact you are the Chosen King that the other five would not let go, I was kept in constant limbo by Ifrit as well. Do you think I wanted to come back after deliberately getting myself torn into tiny tiny pieces? I didn’t want to hear Verus howling as if he was being murdered once they found all that remained of me. I didn’t want to be told my job and do whatever I was told, nor did I want to wait for hundreds of years. All those times Kar vanished like Cor did, I was travelling Lucis. Usually bound for Frontier to make certain the Seers did not forget what awaited them, but I oft strayed from the path. Other than the starless nights, you managed to create what could be Eos without the Scourge, based on a stupid and selfish question I asked you way back – sure, there was malicious intent like trying to weaken you, but in the end I wanted to see what it would be like to not have ancient Sol sins creep on us and threaten to either murder everyone you loved or turn them into the monsters we feared.”_

“ _You could have just made certain I ascend the throne.”_

“ _And hear Verus bawling it out for years on end? I’d rather let your Messenger stab me somehow while coughing up blood and nearly being unconscious again.”_

_Ardyn grimaced._

“ _It,” she said, “was entirely pointless. But I would rather not defy the Infernian. Hells, I defied him by not making certain Verus died. You were right – I didn’t want him to. I tried to, gods, I tried, but in the end I always remembered that brother who would take hits over and over after our father died and our mother’s wrath turned on us instead. The one scared of Chocobos, the one blatant idiot that nearly drowned himself just so I could have that stupid necklace I tossed there on purpose back.”_

“ _Yet you...”_

“ _Yet I did. If I even looked at his face back then, I would’ve hesitated, and I needed him out of the way. Besides, hundreds and thousands of years of suffering he had to endure just because he’s an idiot and I couldn’t think for myself… I’d rather he dies quickly once I managed to successfully attack him.”_

_He lowered the crossbow a little. “Doesn’t excuse anything--”_

“ _I’m not asking you to_ forgive _me. I’m not even asking you to understand me. But fire’s an all-consuming force once unleashed, and what it begins to consume it better finishes consuming. Even if it means being unnecessarily cruel after thousands of years. Just as your Messenger ever played the watchful hawk without getting too involved with mortals, as is what the Draconian does. Just as the Glacian ensures the safety of the Oracles, other than when she deems change necessary. Such has ever been the way of the gods. Though, I admit, I was told to take out Verus before taking you out back when you were helping with purging nests of Daemons in Insomnia. I partially went after you first in sheer spite.”_

_He raised the crossbow again and shrugged. Menda was staring up at him with a blank face and equally blank eyes – she took a deep breath once more._

“ _One last question, Ardyn. What do you plan on doing? There’s Daemons from all over Eos bound for Insomnia, for you and your Crystal.”_

“ _I do what I should have done back then.”_

“ _I see. Putting out the fire so someone else can light the candle once they rebuild the home that burned?”_

“ _Precisely.”_

_She nodded, and Ardyn pulled the trigger._

* * *

“Should we really… Ignis, I… I don’t wanna go in there.”

He rubbed his temples for a moment. It wasn’t exactly a headache at this point, at least not as bad as it had been when he had woken up. Noctis had tried to use his training to his best ability, but he was a lightweight 19-year-old when it came down to it, and that woman that had formerly been Kar was much stronger than him. Still, she had simply kicked him into the wall with enough force to knock him out and taken his weapon after all the effort he had gone through chasing first Kar, then said woman.

“You don’t have to. We can always turn around and pretend I fainted.”

“… _You_ fainted. Sure. They would believe that, absolutely.” He took a deep breath. “No, if we don’t do it, nobody might.”

Noctis opened the door – and regretted it immediately, for the sound that escaped him was more a screech than anything else. Ignis could not even do more than start saying his name in confusion before Noctis bolted off and scrambled up the stairs. Literally scrambling, for he tripped and nearly fell up the stairs in his haste, and definitely tripped over the body of another person in the room. But Noctis bolted for the King on his throne.

“Your Highness!”

He shook the man desperately, but got no answer.

“ _Ardyn_! Ardyn, you… You _promised_!”

Somewhere downstairs Ignis stopped moving and simply turned around. He was clenching his fists, not that Noctis could see that much. He hadn’t even noticed until now but there were tears welling up in his eyes, which made seeing rather hard.

“You promised you wouldn’t just leave like that! Ardyn! Ardyn, _wake up_!”

Finally the infernal sparkling outside died down, and Noctis dropped to his knees. Finally he understood why it was sparkling like this, and why his eyes were stuck in what looked like a constant state of having a vision. The agreement between Seers and Glacian had been annulled.

All around Eos people who would have been afflicted by the Starscourge would be waking with naught but scars marring their bodies.

Noctis Verus buried his face into his hands and sobbed before the throne of Lucis.

* * *

_Every single person he could think of at this time would have chewed him up for slumping into the throne like this. Heavens knew that several Amicitias had wasted a fair share of their lives trying to make the King sit straight whenever he received guests from other countries. A waste of time and energy, for Ardyn never sat straight unless he was speaking about something of grave importance, and most of the average mortal was not deemed worthy to know of the past anyway. There were a few instances, like warning an Aldercapt about his younger daughter’s affliction being more grave than he could imagine – the child had not the flu, but rather been infected with the Starscourge, and Ardyn had watched her scamper around coughing pathetically for a good while before he tried speaking to her father. As Lucian relations with Niflheim had always been tense, the man would not listen. The mother, on the other hand, near begged Ardyn to help her child._

_He would have tried, had the man not whisked her away before he could, and Ardyn was slouching worse than ever for a good few years, much to the distaste of the head of the Amicitias and Cor back then when the news of the younger daughter of Emperor Aldercapt having perished reached him merely two weeks later. Concordia Amicitia spent the latter half of her life trying to make Ardyn sit straight, which bewildered the man for a good ten years even after she died._

_Ardyn was, once more, slouching. He couldn’t think of anyone who would chew him out for doing so, however – the only person who might have just to infuriate him was dead._

_Healers and Oracles were rather similar in many ways, though Healers were marginally weaker in the combat department and much stronger in the healing department. Healers could not, however, commune with the Six – Ardyn was an outlier to many rules, however, seeing as he had been chosen to purge the Starscourge entirely. He had, naturally, refused to even acknowledge any of them since Bahamut glued Cor Leonis to his side, but there were times where it was inevitable. The fact that Shiva followed the Oracles around disguised as Messenger certainly made it hard to avoid at least the Glacian, and the Draconian would naturally receive reports from Cor every once in a while. The others on the other hand rarely heard of him, seeing as they were situated either in very inconvenient places or the Infernian. Ardyn Lucis Caelum was not going to run across Eos again trying to forge covenants like he had done in his youth, and he was certainly even less going to beg them for his help. If they refused him now – which wasn’t unthinkable, seeing as he had brushed them and his fate off near nonchalantly and walked off confidently telling them that it was not necessary at all, or ever – he would find another way._

_He was more surprised than anything else when they actually answered his call._

_Two did so reluctantly, but that feeling was mutual on both ends. Those earthquakes in the Cleigne region always caused more trouble than they were worth, and Leviathan had always been a special case. Not even Accordo was safe from her mood swings whenever she woke. Which, mercifully enough, happened only once every few centuries._

_At the very least Ifrit remained conspicuously absent as always – Ardyn was not sure he would have been able to retain what little remained of his composure, for the voices in the back of his head were already screeching louder than they had ever done before._

_You_ dare _calling us?_

_Of course it would be Leviathan who protested, but Ardyn merely bowed his head._

“ _I am not calling you here for snide remarks, nor for even remotely pretending what I did was right or wrong just to appease you. I am calling you for I finally understand my duty. It is late, extremely late. But I doubt it is too late.”_

_It has been a long time by mortal standards. A very, very long time._

_He didn’t quite dare look at Shiva, but he kept his head bowed and his eyes locked firmly onto the ground._

_Considering he is, by all means, a mortal at heart, he would have learned through time, through trial and error._

“ _Trial and error indeed. The Lucian Wall was a trial, and it ended in failure. Even now I strain to catch my breath properly since it vanished merely hours ago, and I know for certain that there is more than I or Lucis can take on our own on its way. I beseech you, I have learned my lesson. But there are things in Lucis at this point that are worth protecting, much as the Wall did before.”_

_But are you truly ready to face it, Healer?_

_Finally Ardyn looked up and stared at the Draconian. “I would rather die a million deaths than have children dying for me in a fight they cannot win. It is bad enough that in my quest to spite you and my fate I left the rest of Eos to fend for itself.”_

_Much to his surprise it was Shiva who next spoke. Then again she had spent the most time either directly or indirectly watching him as Gentiana, whereas the others might have had their Messengers pry around the Citadel but none as openly as Bahamut had done._

_He promised your Messenger ere he succumbed that he would do what is necessary. He could lie to many people, but Cor Leonis was not one of them._

“… _About… About Cor. I… If only I had been faster, I--”_

_Would have perished like a fool and left what you now seek to protect to be picked apart by Daemons._

“ _I could have at least helped him.”_

_Much like Izunia before him, Leonis would have refused your help._

“ _I know.” Ardyn dropped his head again and sighed. His head was pounding and he just saw a familiar black liquid drip on the floor. “Still. I was once your Chosen, and whatever of that blessing remains I invoke here. To purge the Starscourge is a calling I refused for too long, and I would do so as you once offered. A life for the planet, the Crystal’s glow for peaceful nights. Even if you cannot do what you once offered, use what little remains to make certain Lucis does not get overrun. It can learn to adapt like Accordo, Tenebrae and Niflheim have.”_

_Oh?_

“ _Lucians are… peculiar. But they can adapt; even if the Scourge remains they can manage. It does not even depend on the mutual agreement between Ravus Nox Fleuret and I – the Oracle has ties to Lucis which are completely personal, and she would help if it was necessary. Which, in turn, ensures the aid of her brother.” Ardyn looked up again, this time with a tired smile on his face. “Noctis and Ignis together could possibly rule Lucis better in whatever time they have than I did since the people crowned me as their Immortal King.”_

_It was the choking silence of being judged by gods, and Ardyn just looked at them with an unspoken plea on his lips. He was near ready to beg them to at least make certain that the young people in the Citadel would be safe and able to live – maybe he was growing old and weak, and had gotten way too attached to them. A warning that Cor had given him, years ago._

“… _Besides. Wouldn’t it be about time we let the vengeful or tired spirits of the past,” he gestured at Menda next to the throne and then to himself while saying that, “go in silence?”_

… _Your request shall be granted, Healer. Your life for Eos._

“… _Thank you.”_

* * *

The eyes of the current Lucian overseer were an odd pair of strangely red eyes, but her father had always told her that it was rude to stare. Still, it was hard to _not_ stare into these eyes, which seemed to sparkle even in the dim light of the Citadel at dusk. Maybe it would be better to try hiding behind her father, but that would have been a show of poor manners.

Stella Nox Fleuret was rather shocked when her father actually _bowed_ to that man. Even more shocking was the reaction of the head of the Lucian council – he simply waved his hand a little and asked Ravus to drop the formalities.

It was followed by a long silence, and then Noctis cleared his throat.

“It has been some years. What gives me the honour of your barely announced arrival here, Lord Ravus?”

She could hear her father shrug.

“I merely wanted to give my thanks in person, not through Lunafreya for once. Heavens know we have both been busy, but it seemed particularly out of place all things considered.”

Noctis straightened up a little and stared into Ravus’ eyes, then turned to look at Stella. Stella finally decided now was the time to hide behind her father; something about those red eyes unsettled her.

“… You and her both had… the Scourge?”

“That was why I sent Aranea with an urgent missive to make Lunafreya return home to Tenebrae. My arm was a lost cause, but at least Stella got spared any worse. Which is why me not appearing here in person earlier was out of the line. I should have been here much sooner to offer my humblest and sincerest thanks to the sacrifice Lucis had to suffer on the behalf of all of Eos.”

The head of the council seemed at a loss for words.

“Yeah, he… we...”

Surprisingly enough, it was her father who then cracked a smile. He put a hand on her head and ruffled her short hair, then looked at the man called Noctis again.

“Take your time. Processing actually losing a parent is rather challenging. I would be most grateful if you just gave me directions to where I could personally thank King Ardyn, and I shall be gone before the sun rises again.”

“He wasn’t my f--”

“But as close to a second one as you could have had. Therefore, it takes time. But once that veil lifts, it will be better.”

“… Let me call Nyx and Luna to show you where to go.”

“Much obliged.”

* * *

_He woke on the floor. The room was perfectly pristine as it had ever been, and that alone was enough to alarm him into sitting up._

“ _Careful, careful! You’ll be dizzy for a while. Can’t have you throw up on that nice, clean floor!”_

_Cor Leonis blinked slowly and stared into the grinning face of Verus Izunia._

“ _What on… Eos...”_

“ _If you’re talking about the being dizzy thing, I dunno either. I got up a bit before you and had to lean against a wall. Apparently we gotta thank the Astrals for that; they were just kind of here, after all.”_

_Once more he was rather alarmed and nearly fell over. The other man made sure he didn’t though._

“ _Careful.”_

“ _They were here?!”_

“ _Yeah.”_

“ _Does that mean that--”_

_Verus Izunia offered him a hand._

“ _Get up, Marshal. It’s time we pick up the King.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to personally thank Noah, James, Jamie, Pretzel, Hyda and basically everyone in slime discord who egged me on to continue. It's been a bumpy road, a very bumpy road, and most of you guys had to take my whining and complaining full-force and somehow still managed to not strangle me straight up. I appreciate that a lot, and I appreciate you guys a lot as well.

**Author's Note:**

> the fic only known as seer au, the document is called seer au, it took me 20 minutes of tearing my hair to come up with a title that WASNT seer au  
> but its still basically seer au anyway
> 
> questions can be directed at @estinien_ until i feel like locking my twitter again, or at aethercurrent on tumblr :v


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